The Health District is home to the second-largest concentration of medical and scientific facilities in the US. Due to its singular purpose, the area—which bustles with activity during the daytime—becomes a ghost town at night, leaving only patients, night shift employees, and merciless machines. URBAN HEALTH CATALYST strives to provide an accessible living environment for healthcare employees by introducing mixed-income housing and health-themed programming to the institutional Health District. We also plan to utilize the healthcare resources to stimulate the surrounding distressed neighborhoods.
For the urban scale, we suggest a high-density, mixed-use spine spanning the Health District, creating a neighborhood that is walkable and livable. This continuous linear development connects two anchor points in the surrounding area. Neighbors in the area may share the communal facilities with future tenants.
For the architectural scale, by bringing 448 units of mixed-income housing, medical office, medical community–oriented facilities, and retail into a single complex vertically, the design meets market needs to provide a quality, healthy environment for locals and future tenants.
Bio Xudong Zhu is an architect and urban designer, just graduated from Harvard GSD MAUD in 2022, where he won the third prize of 2022 Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize. Before GSD, He holds Bachelor and Master of Architecture with distinction from Tongji University where he received the highest design honor. During his graduate period, he had an one year double degree program with Politecnico Di Milano.
During his study at Harvard, Xudong co-founded The TEN in Shanghai. As the lead architect, he has led the team to win many well-known design awards at home and abroad in the past few years.
Other prizes - Third Prize, 2022 Plimpton-Poorvu Design Prize, Harvard GSD - 2021 Student Winner, Architecture Masterprize, Urban Design Category - 2021 Student Winner (Best of Best), Architecture Masterprize, Installation & Structure Category - The Third Prize, International Design Competition for Yuyuan Plaza in Shanghai - Silver Award, Exhibition of Architectural Design in Developing Countries 2020 - The Second Prize, Haikou Jiangdong New Area Road Landscape and Street Furniture Competition - The First Prize, West Sichuan Linpan Architecture Renewal Design Competition - 2018 Annual National Scholarship (Top 2%) - 2016-2017 Aedas-TJU Architectural Scholarship (Top 3%) - Outstanding Award, TEAM20 Award for New Talent in Architecture and Urban Planning - 2017-2018 Italian Government Scholarship - Silver Award, Crossing Boundaries CIID 2015 Open Show - Second Prize, 2015 Asian Design Annual Award, Young Architects Growth Plan - Second Prize, 2013 International Cardboard Architectural Design and Construction Competition
