Wenjian Pan is Ph.D. & Associate Professor (Teaching & Research) in Sustainable Architecture & Ecological Urbanism, an architectural designer and urban ecologies & community design researcher. He is now teaching in the School of Architecture and Urban Planning at Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China. He has also registered professional memberships of The Architectural Society of China (ASC - Urban Design Branch) and International Association of China Planning (IACP), as well as served as degree thesis reviewer & examiner for China Academic Degrees and Graduate Education Development Centre. Pan started his architectural professional education in mainland China in 2007 and worked for design firms in Shanghai during the years 2012-2014. From January 2015, he was doing his doctoral studies and conducted urban practices in Hong Kong. He obtained his Doctor of Philosophy (Urban Renewal & Sustainability) in the Department of Architecture at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) in December 2019. Having experienced a series of practices and investigations on civic architecture, green building, urban renewal, neighbourhood well-being, and environmental assessment during the past ten years, he developed his research interest in the social and environmental consequences of contemporary rapid urban transformation in high-density metropolises.

RESEARCH

Before joining the faculty team of HUST, Pan has worked in HKU’s Urban Ecologies Design Lab (UEDL) for eight years and been involved in several social impact projects with taking the role of main researcher, project manager and coordinator, as well as curatorial assistant. These projects responded the emerging ecological challenges in contemporary Asian and Chinese cities at the interrelated scales of city, neighbourhood, building, and human body, including social transitional housing and inclusive community establishment in Asia, history and development of Low Carbon Eco-City in China, rehabilitation of subdivided units in global, redevelopment and integrated regeneration of urban villages in the Pearl River Delta region, as well as sustainable planning and architectural design in Antarctica’s extreme environment. These have inspired him to take environment as a connecting medium for investigation and design interventions.

Based on the spatial, systematic, synthesised, and grounded nature of Urban & Architecture disciplines, Pan’s research explores the deep operational mechanisms and social-ecological impacts of human settlements to provide practical insights into sustainable construction of human habitation at present and in the future. He views urban and humanistic phenomena from a systematic and interdisciplinary perspective and adopt mixed methods for investigations. The efficient governance and sustainable regeneration of high-density old urban neighbourhoods is one of the most important issues that urgently needs to be addressed during contemporary urban transition. Pan is especially interested in and concentrate on these old urban neighbourhoods’ complex morphological characteristics and their impacts on the city operation at multiple spatial scales.

Based on his current studies and findings, he established a theoretical framework of “Shared Urban Ecologies” (SUE) and formed his exploration path, in terms of “Form”, “Pattern”, “Mechanism”, and “Policy” (FPMP). Under this framework, his current research interest examines the diverse environmental performances of the overlooked informal dwelling systems in cities and their impacts on urban eco-systems through exploring and digitally documenting the interactions between their complex morphologies, dynamic communities, and diverse environmental performances, aiming to provide theoretical support and detailed technical guidelines for the establishment of more effective urban intelligent management system.

IMPACT

As a member of HKU's UEDLab, Pan has been involved in an on-going large-scale social impact project entitled "Housing in Place: Quality Living in Sustainable Hong Kong" (funded by Bank of China Hong Kong and in collaboration with Habitat for Humanity, local research institutes, NGOs, and built industries). During the past eight years, Pan’s individual and team research outcomes have been presented in conferences in Europe, Australia, and Asia, and published in leading international journals and books in the field, such as Land Use Policy (JLUP), Landscape and Urban Planning (LANDUP), Building and Environment (BEA), Urban Ecology (Elsevier), and Blue-Green Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban Settlements (Springer Nature). In recent years, he has been awarded as “Viser Expert” by Viser Technology Pte. Ltd. (Singapore) and “Best Researcher Award” in the domain of Community Detection & Graph Participation (Network Science and Graph Analytics) by ScienceFather for his research’s inclusiveness and social impacts. His research has also been exhibited in the 2023 Exhibition of Healthy City Studies and Planning Practices on Our City, Our Health, Shanghai.

Pan has also been invited to be serve as an editor by International Journal of Architectural Engineering Technology (IJAET), a handling editor by Frontiers in Sustainability (Scopus indexed), a guest editor by Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism (JCAU, Scopus indexed), and an editorial board member of Social Sciences & Humanities Open (SSAHO, Elsevier, Scopus indexed) and Urban Environment and Ecological Planning (Open Access Journal Research Center, London), as well as an executive editorial board member of Landscape Architecture Frontiers (CSCD & ESCI Indexed). He has taken roles in several international academic events, such as scientific committee of "The 8th International Conference on Carbon Accounting" (ICARB2023, Edinburgh), peer review committee of "The 6th International Conference on Building Energy and Environment" (COBEE 2025),"2023 the International Conference on Environmental Monitoring and Governance" (ICEMG2023, Shenzhen) & "The 28th UIA World Congress of Architects" (UIA2023, Copenhagen), as well as organizing committees of "World Summit and Expo on Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering" (WSECAEE2024, Edinburgh) & International ConfEx on Civil and Architecture Engineering (CIVILCONFEX 2025).

Receiving Postgraduate Students (M.Arch, M.Eng, M.Phil in Architecture & Urban Studies)

AREAS OF EXPERTISE

- Urban Transformation and Diverse Environmental Evaluation (High-density Metropolises, Informal Settlements)

- Community Design and Co-Creation

- Social Transitional Housing and Strategies for Eco-Rehabilitation

- Mixed-use and Open Spaces and Adaptive Architectural Systems

- Healthy Building and Neighbourhood

- Low Carbon City and Blue-Green Infrastructure

- Nature-based Solutions (NbS) for Ecological Urban Governance

- Architectural Design Principles and Theories

- PRD Urban Transformation, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, & Wuhan Urban Studies