Opportunity
As business education evolves toward collaboration and experiential learning, Tsinghua SEM needed a campus environment that could connect disciplines, people, and ideas.
Tsinghua University sits at the heart of Beijing's leading academic and research ecosystem, with its School of Economics and Management serving as a global platform for business education, research, and collaboration. The opportunity was to create a contemporary academic environment that could support increasingly interdisciplinary and interactive forms of learning while remaining rooted in Tsinghua's campus identity. Gensler sought to connect classrooms, faculty workplaces, student spaces, and social areas through a more open learning environment — encouraging interaction and exchange beyond the traditional classroom.
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Why This Matters
01
Knowledge Exchange
Connects students, faculty, researchers, and industry partners through shared learning environments that encourage informal exchange, collaboration, and interdisciplinary discovery.
02
Flexible Learning
Adaptable classrooms and teaching spaces support evolving business education models, enabling different combinations of lectures, workshops, discussion, collaboration, and digital learning.
03
Connected Campus
Open circulation and social spaces extend learning beyond classrooms, strengthening connections between academic life, faculty workplaces, research, and the wider Tsinghua campus.
The design concept of ‘Knowledge Bridge' fully reflects connectivity, integration, and identity, while promoting interdisciplinary integration, innovation and entrepreneurship education.
Solution
Three complementary building components are connected by a shared spatial framework, transforming circulation into a platform for interaction, learning, and innovation.
The Tsinghau University School of Economics and Management is organized around a connected network of learning, collaboration, and social spaces. Rather than treating classrooms as isolated rooms, the design creates opportunities for students and faculty to meet informally throughout the building. Flexible teaching environments support different pedagogies, while shared spaces encourage interdisciplinary exchange and interaction. The architecture balances contemporary transparency and openness with Tsinghua's established campus character, creating an academic environment that supports both focused study and the collaborative culture of modern business education.
Related Content
710.4K
Site Area
square feet
[NEEDS INPUT: statistic label]
32.3K
Innovation-focused Space
2
Interconnected Buildings
The design process began with a simple question: how can a business school become a catalyst for the exchange of knowledge, ideas, and people?
The design process began with understanding how business education is changing — from lecture-based instruction toward collaboration, discussion, experimentation, and interdisciplinary learning. Gensler worked with the school to translate these evolving pedagogies into spatial relationships between teaching, faculty, research, and social spaces. Circulation became an opportunity for interaction, while flexible classrooms and shared environments allow the building to adapt to different teaching formats. The result is a more connected academic workplace that supports the school's ambitions as an internationally engaged center for business education and research.
Impact
The new complex creates a more connected model of business education, bringing teaching, research, entrepreneurship, and informal exchange together on campus.
By connecting teaching, research, and entrepreneurship through shared spaces and landscape, the new SEM complex turns the campus into a platform for collaboration and exchange.
What Changed Because of This
01
Learning Experience
Flexible learning environments support more interactive teaching models, giving students greater choice in how they learn, collaborate, and engage.
02
Community & Exchange
Shared spaces and connected circulation encourage students, faculty, and researchers to interact beyond formal classrooms, strengthening academic community and collaboration.
03
Future Education
The project provides an adaptable framework for business education, responding to evolving pedagogies while reinforcing Tsinghua SEM's international academic ambitions.
Based on our research into education trends, we carefully evaluated the types of spaces Tsinghua SEM needed — designing an environment that supports collaboration and enhances both learning and work efficiency.
Recognition
Tsinghua University
Sohu
China National Radio
Team
