Architects:BDP Architects

Location:Suzhou, China

Project time: 2008

XI'AN Jiaotong-Liverpool University (XJTLU), established only five years ago in Suzhou, has already gained plaudits for excellent student performance, and it's a fact 90 percent of its graduates head for the world's first-rate universities for postgraduate study. It has topped the list of China's universities in an American math contest for college students for straight three years, and its graduates are praised by world-renowned enterprises like KPMG and the Royal Bank of Scotland. However, strolling along Ren'ai Road of Suzhou Industrial Park, visitors can easily miss this university campus that calls no attention to itself with showy walls and gates. This new type of international university has striking features of a different sort. XJTLU was jointly established by Xi'an Jiaotong University and the University of Liverpool in 2006, as an independent legal entity, and was officially approved by China's Ministry of Education. As China's only university of science and technology based on the China-foreign joint operation model, XJTLU is blazing a new trail for China's higher education reform.