Zhou Jun
About me
I am a Northern Bridge PhD candidate in Architecture at Newcastle University. My current research project explores the borderscape between mainland China and Hong Kong as a transformative interface between the state and the local.
I studied architecture at undergraduate level while developing multiple interests and expanding my knowledge beyond traditional disciplinary boundaries. In general, I am interested in how built environments are produced as contemporary geopolitical landscapes, along with their knowledge, methods and discourse under social transformation and cultural appropriation. I am also keen on developing creative mapping and other visual methods to narrate the story of sites and materials.
From my previous training, I have a research background in vernacular architecture and heritage studies, with particular emphasis on material culture and the production of buildings. Also trained as an architect, I have professional experience from universities, design institutes and practices, such as Atelier Feichang Jianzhu (Atelier FCJZ), primarily working on cultural buildings, built heritages, and historic environments.
Outside of academia, I enjoy the outdoors (both in the wild and city-walking), tennis (which I am improving at), handcrafts, and cooking – I love spicy flavours with fresh aromas, and here in the UK, I am eager to try (both to taste and to make) cuisine from around the world.
I would be interested in further collaborations or simply small (but inspiring) talks on the areas above.
Project Title
Opening-up and Settling-down: ‘Bordering’ as a Spatial Apparatus in the Making of Shenzhen Special-Economic-Zone during China’s Reform Era (1980s-2010s)
Project description
Shenzhen is the leading Special-Economic-Zone (SEZ) which was launched experimentally in 1980 under China’s Reform and Opening-up campaign. By taking advantage of the proximity to Hong Kong – then a British colony and a developed metropolis – Shenzhen permitted the delivery of product lines into the global market beyond. This strategy was formulated by the exploitation and construction of multiple borders around and inside Shenzhen SEZ, including a ‘First-line’, the land-sea-boundary separating British Hong Kong from mainland China, to access its resources ahead; and a militarily-equipped ‘Second-line’, fenced inside the mainland to redistribute its population.
My project reads the above borderlands before and after the Handover of Hong Kong in 1997. I aim to examine how architect-designed sites and centrally-planned infrastructures created a particular environment to engage with globalisation, whilst constructed a platform for commercial or political agencies. It contributes to the understanding of architecture’s power in border construction from (post-)colonial periods since the 1980s towards (de-)globalisation of the 2010s. This borderscape, furthermore, has become a changing setting where the changing cultural meanings and social structures of the emerging contemporary era became enacted. Such complexity can reframe our knowledge about the ‘space-power’ relation through a border experiment, and also deliver border studies into a design and spatial tectonic.
This research is funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) through the Northern Bridge Consortium Doctoral Training Partnership. The presentation of my pilot study is supported by Design History Society’s student speaker bursary
Supervisors
Qualifications
Introduction to Learning and Teaching in Higher Education (ILTHE) Certificate, Newcastle University, UK
M.Eng. in Architectural History, Theory and Heritage (research-oriented), Southeast University, China
B.Arch. in Architecture (1st Class equiv.), Hunan University, China
Research Group Memberships
Architectural Humanities Research Association (AHRA)
Architecture Research Collaborative (ARC), Newcastle University
Centre for Heritage, Newcastle University
Centre for Landscape (affiliated with the ECR academy), Newcastle University
Chinese Independent Film Archive
Production Studies Research Group