ZHANG Ye is Associate Professor (tenured) and Assistant Dean (International relations) at School of Architecture, Tsinghua University. Before returning to Tsinghua University under China’s overseas high-level talents plan in 2024, he was Associate Professor (tenured) at National University of Singapore, wherein he served as Deputy Head, Urbanism Cluster Leader, and Director of Master of Arts in Urban Design (MAUD) programme at Department of Architecture. He has also been serving as Director General of International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU) since 2020, an international network of universities and research institutes with the task to strengthen the collaboration in the field of Urbanism.
Ye holds a PhD in Architecture from University of Cambridge, UK (2014) and received both M.Arch and B.Arch degrees from Tsinghua University, China (2006 & 2008). He was a fellow of Cambridge Overseas Trust from 2008 to 2011, and also a visiting academic at The Bartlett School of Planning, University College London in 2015.
Ye’s principal research interest resides in synergising different approaches to describing, analysing and assessing urban form and its association with various social and economic activities in the city. His current research focuses on applying AI and machine learning models to understand and improve human-environment interactions in the process of urban regeneration. His research has received funding from institutions in United Kingdom, USA, Switzerland, Hong Kong SAR, Singapore, and China. Ye has published widely in the field of urban form and urbanism. His recent books include Sharing by Design (2020) and Conserving and Managing Historical Urban Landscape: An Integrated Morphological Approach (2023), both published by Springer Nature.
Ye is the recipient of Teaching Excellence Honour Roll at National University of Singapore, the university’s top teaching award that recognises colleagues’ sustained achievements in teaching innovation and educational leadership. He has lectured broadly at University of Cambridge, University College London, Meiji University, Curtin University, University of Auckland, Chinese University of Hong Kong, among many others. Ye has collaborated with industry and created international platforms for experimental design research for high-density Asian cities, such as the NUS-Tsinghua Design Research Initiative: Sharing Cities. His design research work has been featured in many top international exhibitions including the Venice Biennale of Architecture and UIA World Architects Congress.
