DnA Design and Architecture
Xu Tiantian is an architect and the director of DnA Design and Architecture, a practice founded in Beijing in 2004. She is among the first generation of women in China to establish their own architectural practices.
She received a Bachelor of Architecture from Tsinghua University in 1997 and a Master of Architecture in Urban Design from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design in 2000. She is currently a professor at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. Xu was named an International Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects (AIA) in 2020 and was elected a member of the German Academy of Arts (Akademie der Künste) in 2024.
Her work has been recognized with numerous prestigious awards, including the Swiss Architectural Award (2022), the Berlin Art Prize (2023), the Marcus Prize for Architecture (USA, 2023), the Holcim Gold Award for Asia-Pacific (2023), and the UNESCO Global Award for Sustainable Architecture. In 2025, she received the Wolf Prize in Architecture. Xu has also held visiting professorships at Yale University and the Mendrisio Academy of Architecture in Switzerland.
In recent years, Xu Tiantian has focused on architecture in China’s rural regions. Her practice is dedicated to rural revitalization through a strategy she describes as “architectural acupuncture,” consisting of small-scale, site-specific interventions designed to activate local culture, agriculture, and tourism. In 2019, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat) recognized her Songyang “architectural acupuncture” initiative as a global model for urban–rural integration.
