Mr John LIN Chun-han

Recipient of 2014 UGC Teaching Award

Affiliation at the time of the award
Associate Professor, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong

Award Citation
Mr Lin is an architect who works with a deep sense of historical, cultural and social context. He is a teacher's teacher, in that he has been mentor, colleague and collaborator across both academic and political boundaries. He is a pioneer of experiential learning. He has a vision of bridging a permeable divide between university education, professional practice, and community engagement, bringing groups of students to collaborate with him on a series of extraordinary architecture projects in rural China. In doing so, he has argued convincingly for inverting the traditional pyramid of university undergraduate education - putting practice before theory, and has shown how students bring insights from working in teams on real projects to their subsequent theoretical studies. The Selection Panel was particularly impressed by his leadership of HKU students and local villagers in rebuilding a historic bridge in Guizhou, which by all accounts is still standing.

Mr Lin plans to use the award fund to implement two pilot projects to strengthen experiential learning in inter-disciplinary curricular programmes. The first will set up an inter-disciplinary teaching facility in a rural village in Guangdong; and the other is to set up multi-disciplinary, inter-faculty programmes.

Video on Teaching Philosophies