Juan Du is Dean and Professor at the University of Toronto’s John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design. She is on the Scientific Committee of the 2023 UIA World Congress of Architects, co-chairing the Design for Resilient Communities Track with Anna Rubbo.
Juan has practiced extensively in North America, Europe and Asia, and established her Hong Kong-based research and design office IDU in 2006. She also directs the Urban Ecologies Design Lab (UEDL), an academic research lab that generates and applies innovative strategies in collaboration with community partners. Through her work, Juan frequently works together with NGOs, the private sector and governmental institutions to champion for communities in need, such as indigenous villagers, migrant workers, women and children, the working homeless and transnational refugees.
Juan’s research, design and curatorial works have been featured and published internationally in a wide range of venues, from public media to professional and academic journals; her award-winning 2020 book, The Shenzhen Experiment: The Story of China’s Instant City, was published by Harvard University Press. She has previously taught architecture and urban design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and at the University of Hong Kong.