“Designing the Future, Living the Century”—Future Habitat Culture and Industry Development Forum Held by Tsinghua (Qingdao) Academy of Arts and Science Innovation Research Together with Foshan Alumni Association of Jingdezhen Ceramic University

On the morning of April 20, under the guidance of Tsinghua (Qingdao) Academy of Arts and Science Innovation Research (TASA), the Future Habitat Culture and Industry Research Center of TASA, together with the Foshan Alumni Association of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, held the “Designing the Future, Living the Century”—Future Habitat Culture and Industry Development Forum at Foshan Tanzhou International Convention and Exhibition Center. This event brought Tsinghua University’s academic expertise in habitat culture and industry development to Foshan, a globally renowned manufacturing city, aiming to explore future habitat culture and industry development in the context of “Where there’s a home, there’s Foshan-made products.”

This forum served as a continuation of the “Designing the Future, Living the Century” TASA Habitat Forum series hosted by TASA in 2024. In response to the innovation bottlenecks and brand breakthrough challenges faced by Foshan’s home manufacturing industry, TASA has further advanced the progress of habitat culture from the academic domain into the manufacturing domain, achieving deep integration between expertise and industry, and art and science. Meanwhile, the forum leveraged the strengths of the Foshan Alumni Association of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, gathering nearly 100 representatives and designers from the University’s alumni enterprises including ARROW Home Group Co., Ltd. (ARROW), Guangdong GANI (Group) Ceramics Co., Ltd. (GANI), and Guangdong KITO Ceramics Group Co., Ltd. Seizing the opportunity of the 2025 Foshan Uniceramics Expo, this forum explored possibilities for integrating art, design, and technology through high-quality presentations, fostering industrial exchanges to provide new development ideas for Foshan’s home supplies manufacturing industry.

WANG Jiansong, General Consultant of the forum, a tenured professor and Ph.D. supervisor at Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University (AADTHU), and Executive Vice President of TASA, delivered a keynote speech titled Human Habitat Culture and Industry Innovation. From the perspective of heritage and reinterpretation of habitat culture, Mr. WANG Jiansong traced the evolution of Chinese habitat culture and AADTHU’s research history and deposits in the exploration and creative transformation of traditional culture. He emphasized the nourishing role of traditional culture exploration in modern industries, urging Foshan’s manufacturing enterprises to approach technological breakthroughs through cultural and conceptual innovations, and advocating a return to the exploration of traditional Chinese culture. By integrating traditional culture with corporate products through modern technology and presenting it in ways that align with contemporary aesthetic sensibilities, enterprises can drive product upgrades and innovation.

Additionally, Mr. WANG Jiansong further elucidated the relationship between artistic innovation and technological advancement and the crucial role of conceptual innovation in industrial development, through the interplay of conceptual thinking, technological revolution, artistic creativity, social demands, and design education. Concluding his speech, Mr. WANG Jiansong highlighted TASA’s development model, resource advantages, and key laboratories. He expressed his hope that enterprises could utilize the habitat culture and industry development alliance platform and take social needs as the goal to actively promote innovation in design concepts and methods, realizing full-chain design services and industrial incubation in habitat culture while uniting their efforts in collaborative synergies.

LIU Yanyan, Secretary-General of the Foshan Alumni Association of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, presided over the forum and explained its background.

LUO Fei, a representative of the co-organizer Foshan Uniceramics Development Co., Ltd. and Executive Vice Chairman of Foshan Alumni Association of Jingdezhen Ceramic University, stated in his speech that this event brought together Tsinghua University’s cutting-edge wisdom, the craftsmanship heritage of alumni from Jingdezhen Ceramic University, and the ceramic industry’s innovative DNA in Foshan, hoping to pool efforts to write a new chapter for the high-quality development of China’s ceramic industry.

YANG Jinlong, a professor and Ph.D. supervisor from the State Key Laboratory of New Ceramics and Fine Processing at the School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tsinghua University, gave a keynote speech titled Foam-Structured Precursor Ceramics and Their Applications. Addressing the higher requirements for structural ceramics’ important mechanical properties including flexural strength, fracture toughness, and fracture reliability in cutting-edge technological fields, Professor YANG detailed the new process of foam-structured precursor ceramics (FPC). Through comparative case studies, he demonstrated significant differences in material properties between FPC and traditional processes, emphasizing its advantages in enhancing the material strength, toughness, and hardness.

Professor YANG also explained key research achievements such as ZrO2 strong and tough ceramics, Al2O3 high-performance ceramics, layered ZTA composite ceramics, B4C high-hardness ceramics, and Si3N4 self-toughened ceramics through specific experimental methods, along with international recognition and award-winning status of this research.

SONG Wenwen, Director of Color Design and Application Laboratory at TASA and Executive Deputy Director of Colour & Imaging Institute at Art & Science Research Center, Tsinghua University, presented Color Emotions in Space. Beginning with the relationship between hues and emotions, Ms. SONG showcased the presentation and application of colors in space. She explained how variations in hue, brightness, and saturation create distinct visual effects, thus evoking people’s different emotional responses.

In the speech, Ms. SONG introduced the research project on Chinese perception of emotional hues conducted by her team, which categorized hues into ten distinct types: “pale,” “misty,” “dim,” “dark,” “light,” “blended,” “somber,” “bright,” “rich,” and “vivid.” This project showed the findings of survey experiments demonstrating how different hues convey distinct emotions. Furthermore, through a series of case studies, she explained the combination of colors with materials and textures, displaying the aesthetic and emotional value that colors bring to interior design.

WANG Wenqi, Chief Design Director of ARROW Home Group Co., Ltd., made a keynote speech—Trends of Smart Bathroom Spaces in Future Habitats. He pointed out ARROW’s focus on consumers’ core demands and indicated ten key consumer-centric objectives, including “people-oriented” principles based on ten global trends. With emphasis on lifestyle changes and user experience enhancement, he introduced ARROW’s numerous attempts in smart technologies, emotional design, and futuristic aesthetics, demonstrating the brand’s user experience philosophy that pursues “minimalism, perfection, effectiveness, intuition, harmony, and comprehensiveness.” Finally, Mr. WANG Wenqi highlighted ARROW’s commitment to transcending product boundaries through design innovation, thereby bringing about transformation and growth. He expressed the brand’s aspiration to create “love-infused” spaces by considering new lifestyles of both the present and the future.

LIU Hongmei from GANI delivered a keynote speech titled Future Habitat: Human-Nature-Technology Coexistence. Starting the speech from the symbiotic relationship among humans, nature, and technology, Ms. LIU elaborated on the relationship between humans and nature, and discussed new propositions for future habitat through three aspects: the demand for architectural material innovation driven by climate change, the need for interactive reconfiguration of interior spaces brought about by the digital revolution, and the urgent requirement for healthy living environments. Moreover, by exploring future architectural directions in carbon neutrality, intelligence, bio-architecture, and space architecture, Ms. LIU expounded how interior spaces can transcend mere aesthetic functions to achieve environmental and emotional empowerment. She illustrated the possibilities of material technology in seeking a dynamic balance between future human habitat and human-centric needs through GANI’s pursuit of multi-sensory empowerment within spaces.

The successful convening of the “Designing the Future, Living the Century”—Future Habitat Culture and Industry Development Forum marks TASA’s tangible progress in realizing its vision of “engaging with industries to facilitate their development.” Moving forward, TASA will collaborate with more industry partners to write new chapters in future habitat culture and industry development, creating a better human habitat.