On November 7, the 8th Wuhan Design Biennale opened at Wuhan International Expo Center. The event brought together nearly a thousand participants including global academicians, design masters, experts, scholars, representatives from UNESCO Creative Cities, as well as industry organizations, leading enterprises, and academic institutions from China's design sector, gathering for this global design feast to discuss future design frontiers.

 The theme of this year's Biennale is "Creativity Without Borders • Integration and Sharing." Guided by the Chinese National Commission for UNESCO and hosted by the Wuhan Municipal People's Government, it was jointly organized by the Wuhan Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources and Urban-Rural Development, the Publicity Department of the CPC Wuhan Municipal Committee, the Hanyang District People's Government, the Caidian District People's Government, and the Wuhan Urban Construction Investment & Development Group Co., Ltd. The Biennale innovatively adopted a "1+1+N" exhibition framework, with the main venue at Wuhan International Expo Center, a sub-venue at Chenhu International Town, and simultaneous parallel meetings across the city alongside various activities in multiple creative communities and demonstration parks, forming a citywide design event.

 Industry Collaboration and Empowerment: Promoting Integrated and Shared Design

 The opening ceremony focused on the implementation of design achievements and industrial collaborative innovation, building bridges for the deep integration of design with industry, talent, and the city through awards, signings, releases, and accreditations.

 During the ceremony, the award presentations for the 2025 Wuhan International Creative Design Competition (Golden Huanghe Awards) and the 2025 International Block Challenge were held. The "Golden Huanghe Award," symbolizing Wuhan's design innovation exploration, specifically selected popular urban landmarks like Yellow Crane Tower, Shanhaiguan Road, and Hanyang Gate—places often visited by citizens, highly noticed, and full of urban vitality—as design subjects, soliciting more livable renewal and enhancement proposals without professional or regional restrictions. On site, representatives from six professional group first prize winners, including Wuhan Ruito Architectural Design Consulting Co., Ltd., and the Best Organization Award winner, Wuhan Qiyi Huayuan Middle School, received awards. The International Block Challenge, jointly organized by UNESCO Creative Cities of Design with participation from global university teams, selected four winning schemes after one month of meticulous review by 30 global authoritative experts. Awards were presented to: the Interaction Design Award winner—Wuhan University team; the Aesthetic Design Award winner—Universidad Humanitas de México team; the Community Development Award winners—Jianghan University team and Lawrence Technological University (USA) team; and the Comprehensive Design Award winner—Universidad Humanitas de México team.

 Beyond honors, industrial cooperation is key to design value transformation. During the opening ceremony, eight enterprises signed agreements to settle in the nation's first small-game industry incubation base—the "Wuhan Small-Game Industry Incubation Base." These include vibrant new-generation small-game teams, industry leaders like Zhangyou Technology, and top forces like Tencent TiMi J3 Studio. They will collaborate to break industry boundaries, share resource platforms, and jointly promote the integrated development of the digital creative industry and design.

 Long-term industrial development relies on talent support. Following the signing ceremony, four "Wuhan Industry-Education Integration Projects" were officially released, including the Wuhan AI Design Innovation Joint Laboratory, Hubei Cultural Heritage Digital Design Center, Digital Cultural and Creative Industry Innovation Incubation Base, and Hubei Industrial Design Service Innovation Research Institute, aiming to break down industry-academia-research barriers and cultivate top talent for Wuhan's design sector.

 Wuhan has over 50 universities with design-related majors, nearly 100,000 design students, more than 10,000 design-related enterprises, over 10 design industry associations, and a workforce exceeding 500,000, forming a powerful "Design Creative Alliance" and fostering an integrated innovation development ecosystem combining industrial chains, innovation chains, talent chains, and value chains. At the end of the opening ceremony, the "Wuhan Design Creative Alliance" was officially accredited, witnessed by representatives from diverse design forces including design enterprises, industry associations, universities, research institutes, and independent designers. The Alliance will strive to achieve eight goals: integrating design into the city for collaborative development; empowering industries for upgraded momentum; gathering wisdom to create an innovation talent highland; building trust for an improved innovation ecosystem; serving the people to depict a new vision of a happy city; laying foundations to cultivate youth growth; guiding design toward goodness to lead digital civilization; and connecting through design to expand international exchange space.

 Gathering of Top Minds: Discussing the Future Development of Design

 The Biennale brings together top global design intellects, with nearly 10 academicians, 12 National Engineering Survey and Design Masters, over 20 renowned scholars, and more than 10 UN-Habitat experts conducting multiple academic exchanges. The keynote speeches on opening day were particularly highlight-filled.

 Academician Wu Zhiqiang of the Chinese Academy of Engineering delivered a speech titled "Urban Life, Empowered by Digital Intelligence." He emphasized the deep integration of industrial and spatial planning, stating that as cities develop as living organisms, some spaces will become new landmarks and growth points under the premise of meeting diverse needs, necessitating unleashed spatial potential, intelligent element allocation, and sustained momentum injection.

French Academy of Architecture Academician Jacques Lévy presented a report titled "From Crisis to Opportunity: Architectural and Urban Responses in the Evolution of Environmental Concepts—A Dialogue of Chinese and French Experiences." Using Paris as an example, he explored promoting sustainable stock development amid severe environmental challenges, including the logic of architectural design, underlying economic principles, usage choices, and real estate market operations in this context.

 During the exhibition, five parallel meetings and six academic conferences will cover areas like livable cities, AI empowerment, and wetland governance, where nearly a thousand experts, scholars, and industry representatives will discuss design frontiers and development paths.

 Global Creativity Gathers: Creating an Immersive Design Feast

 The main and sub-venues feature nine major exhibition areas open simultaneously, interpreting the theme "Creativity Without Borders • Integration and Sharing" from multiple perspectives.

 The main venue at Wuhan International Expo Center has seven major exhibition areas covering 16 technical categories and 200 design specialties, with participation from over 20 international creative design network cities and domestic cities, nearly 300 enterprises/institutions/individuals, and over 3,000 works. This clearly outlines design power's transmission path: from foundational flexible wisdom and core strength empowering industry and technology innovation, ultimately reaching people-oriented, life-close micro-level fields, offering a "Wuhan Model" for global design.

 Among the seven thematic exhibitions: "City-Water Symbiosis Intelligent Design Exhibition" showcases Wuhan's core wisdom in waterfront city construction, invisible forces behind resilient governance, and world-leading achievements in super-long-span bridges and digital twin technology; "Artificial Intelligence Creative Design Exhibition" displays AI's disruptive applications in industrial design, architectural generation, artistic creation, and intelligent interaction; "Design Education Innovation Achievements Exhibition" features over 20 Wuhan design schools/universities, fully demonstrating the cluster's core strength; "Digital Creative Design Achievements Exhibition" presents domestically leading works from Wuhan's animation/game industry, experienceable virtual-real cultural tourism/museum scenes, and latest AI virtual technology applications; "Industrial Design Award-Winning Works Exhibition" systematically gathers, for the first time, 300 works from 40 international/domestic design awards including China Good Design Award, China Industrial Design Award, Red Star Design Award, Zero Carbon Award, Red Dot Award, iF Design Award, IDEA, K-Design, and Gold Pin Design Award; "Architecture and Planning Frontier Design Exhibition" assembles award-winning works from Arcasia Awards for Architecture, São Paulo Architecture Biennale, Golden Huanghe Award, 2025 International Block Challenge, National College Student Territorial Spatial Planning and Design Competition, etc.; "Creative Community/Block/Park Construction Achievements Exhibition" showcases Wuhan's successful practices in revitalizing old industrial areas, micro-renewal of community public spaces, and smart community construction.

 The sub-venue at Chenhu International Town in Caidian District has two major exhibition areas. The "International Wetland City Design Exhibition" gathers latest achievements, practical cases, and outstanding accomplishments from domestic/foreign excellent enterprises and local Wuhan enterprises/universities/research institutions under three themes: design practices for ecological governance in the middle Yangtze River, wetland ecological restoration and related industries, and green living scenarios shared by all. The "By the Water" International Masters Invitational Exhibition features works from five academicians, six international masters, seven national engineering survey and design masters, two provincial masters, and five young/middle-aged architects, engaging in an intergenerational dialogue between nature and design.

 The Wuhan Design Biennale, an important event in the UNESCO "Creative Cities Network" for Design, has been held for seven consecutive sessions, becoming a key window for Wuhan's external exchanges and a significant carrier for building an international exchange center. The 8th Wuhan Design Biennale continues until November 13, open to the public free of charge. During this period, multiple meetings and activities like the UNESCO Creative Cities of Design Working Meeting, Designer's Night, and special academic exchanges on ecological design will be held, building a platform for global design display, exchange, and cooperation, further promoting deep integration of design with industrial upgrading, urban governance, and livelihood improvement.