Xu Tiantian

Xu Tiantian is a Chinese architect who is the founding principal architect of DnA Design and Architecture. She has engaged extensively in the rural revitalizing process in China. She has received numerous awards, such as the WA China Architecture Award in 2006 and 2008, the Moira Gemmill Prize for Emerging Architecture in 2019, and the 14th International Prize for Sustainable Architecture Gold Medal; in 2020, she was appointed an Honorary Fellow of American Institute of Architects. For Xu, architecture has the capacity to transform lives and to impact the society it serves while following the mandate of the times.

Early life and education Xu was born in 1975 in Fujian, China. She notes that her architectural interests likely were born out of her childhood home in Fujian – a large compound holding more than 100 people. The traditional home with layers of courtyards and corridors stands out in Xu's mind for its beauty.

Xu received her BArch from Beijing's Tsinghua University and her M.A. in urban design from the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

Career and design approach Growing up in China in the 1970s and 80s, Xu experienced the transformation of the urban landscape from traditional to modern. With China's Reform and Opening of the 1980s, the rural population of China's historically agrarian society began to pour into cities seeking new opportunities; the countryside was left with the elderly and children, unattended farmland, and run-down houses. Much of Xu's work represents a response to this transformation: she does not want to leave rural communities left behind. This focus on China's rural communities is evident in her interview for Many Voices: Architecture for Social Equity:In China, rural people are still half of our population – as is true for most of the globe – so I have chosen to focus on rural communities. Many things are needed in rural areas to face this modern era, not just by modernisation but by approaching each rural context and history with sensitivity. The issues could be very different in different places – even our work changes very much from village to village. It's very important to respect the individuality of each project. In calling for sensitive architectural interventions, Xu advocates for an approach known as "Architectural Acupuncture." This "Architectural Acupuncture" addresses holistically the social and economic revitalization of rural China by minimizing interventions, in order to promote long-term sustainable development of rural communities, without a dependence upon governmental or large-industry investments. Completed in 2006, it was important to the architect that the structure take contextual clues from its surroundings. Xu describes the work in an essay titled, "Experimentation, Exchange, Life, and Art":The red bricks used for the exterior of the museum and the grey paving tile in front of the museum that extend into the interior were references from the brick buildings and courtyards in the village. Reflecting traditional courtyards in the village, the individual art blocks of the museum were extruded from a rectangular envelope from a simple layout…The handrails of the staircase leading up to this classic space are made of a crisscross mesh of steel, evoking the fences in the existing village. and the 14th International Prize for Sustainable Architecture Gold Medal.

She is an Honorary Fellow of the American Institute of Architects. She has taught design studio as a visiting professor at the Yale School of Architecture.

In 2025, Xu was awarded the Wolf Prize in Arts in the architecture category.