The project has started as an abstract submission in May 2015 to the VII International Urban & Urbanization PhD Seminar hosted by EPFL University in Lausanne, whose main topic was that has selected the exploration of the “Horizontal Metropolis” concept as the main topic to explore.

The successful selection of the contribution paper made written by the PhD candidate Edoardo Bruno with about the theme of the Southern urban expansion of the Guangzhou metropolis, has brought the possibility to participate at the Seminar, hosted in Lausanne from 12th to 14thof October 2015. The event was useful both for sharing the information of the specific research in front of a scientific commission,both and for to meeting many students coming from the most important European Universities debating around the issue of the urban growths.

The paper presented focuses on the importance of the shifting in planning methodologies applied by the Municipality of the city of Guangzhou in the last 15 years, due to the necessity of reconverting its built environment overwhelmed by its uncontrolled expansion of the Eighties and the Nineties.

The presentation of the paper gave the possibility to have as Discussantsof discussing with Prof. G.S. Lin from the University of Hong Kong, author of  “Red Capitalism in Pearl River Delta”, and Prof. Vincent Nadin from TU Delfts, now focusing on planning practices in China. In this it way possible to enforce these networks so linked many activities of the Lab, crossing research interests and human resources.