Juan Du (2015). Sustaining What? In Shi Jian (Ed.), New Observations: A Collection of Architectural Criticism. Shanghai: Tongji University Press. The book begins not with an abstract story of Shenzhen’s early history, but a personal tale which epitomizes its spirit of transformation. Jiang Kairui made his way to Shenzhen from the far north-east of the country in 1992, a few months after Deng Xiaoping’s now equally mythologized “Southern Tour”, in which the ostensibly retired leader toured Shenzhen and other nearby cities to affirm the policies of reform and opening which he had pioneered. Juan Du is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) and a founding director of the Shenzhen Centre for Design. Her new book ‘The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City’ (Harvard University Press) emerged from her active involvement in the ongoing development and planning of the city. JD: There have been hundreds of SEZ’s and new areas established in China since the 1980s, but not even one comes close to Shenzhen. This has not deterred more ongoing efforts of economic or industrial zone developments in China. Viewing Shenzhen’s role as an industrial or economic zone only would be a mistake for anyone wishing to understand or emulate its development. Juan Du (2015). ‘Low Carbon City Users’ Manual: An International Academic Research Project’ (pp. 160-169). ‘Low Carbon City – A Designer’s Manual’, by Juan Du, Phil Jones, Dorothy Tang, Ivan Valin, and Natalia Echeverri (pp. 170-179). In Seeking A Path To Future Low Carbon Cities, Beijing: China Architecture & Building Press.

Juan Du. History of Shenzhen and the formation of Urban Villages, Special Issue on Design for the City/ Shenzhen, Urban Environment Design, 108 (2017): 34-39. McHugh, Fionnula (2020-02-16). "In Shenzhen, 'urban villages' like Baishizhou have been lost to the megacity myth". South China Morning Post. Juan Du (2017). History of Shenzhen and the formation of Urban Villages, Special Issue on Design for the City/ Shenzhen, Urban Environment Design, 108 (8): 34-39.In more recent years, Shenzhen has recognised the importance of these neighbourhoods as providers of affordable housing to the city’s working population, and the current urban planning policy is indicating a different approach – one of rehabilitation rather than total redevelopment. Over the next decade, while the socio-economic characteristics will continue to change and evolve, I believe most of the urban villages in Shenzhen will remain. Juan Du has practised extensively in the US, Europe, as well as China, and founded her Hong Kong-based office IDU_architecture in 2006, with projects ranging from the extent of built forms to the social and ecological processes of the city. Her works have been exhibited internationally including multiple presentations at the Venice Architecture Biennale and the Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture. Juan was the Chief Curator of ‘Quotidian Architectures’, Hong Kong’s participation in the 2010 Venice Biennale of Architecture; Curator of the ‘Housing an Affordable City’ exhibition at the 2011 Shenzhen Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale, and Curator of the 2020 ‘Rethinking Shenzhen’ exhibition at the Shenzhen Museum of Contemporary Art and Urban Planning. Juan Du (2009). Shenzhen Central Huanggang Village Redevelopment Research and Proposal, Urban China (Guest ed. Neville Mars), 35, 52-53.

Juan Du (2010). Quotidian Architectures: Hong Kong in Venice. In Fondazione La Biennale di Venezia (Ed.), People Meet in Architecture Biennale Architectura 2010, Exhibition Catalogue (pp. 194-195). Venice: Marsilio Editori s.p.a. Even at this point, the city’s destiny as the 21st century workshop of the world was far from certain. Du points out that despite the common view of the city being built on foreign direct investment, Shenzhen’s initial development in the 1980s was supported largely by investment from within China, and the value of the city’s extensive construction sector far outweighed that of manufacturing. For this reason, it was widely seen as a failure among anti-reform party dignitaries, who were looking for any reason to call the whole thing off because of its capitalist aspirations. Juan Du (2011). Sustaining What? Communities as the Foundation for Social Sustainability and Development, Urban Flux New Perspective (Special Report), 20, 15-20. (In Chinese) PF: You challenge the idea of Shenzhen as a ‘blank canvas’ where nothing much existed before. What was Shenzhen, before it was Shenzhen?In stark contrast to conventional, flattened accounts of this vast Chinese city, Juan Du has given us an architect’s magical encounter with a place that we cannot quite see with our eyes, but can experience in fragments. I love this account of Shenzhen.”—Saskia Sassen, author of Expulsions: Brutality and Complexity in the Global Economy