Living Steel International Architecture Competition juror, Cui Kai, a visiting professor of Tianjin University, is the chief architect of China Architecture Design and Research Group, China's national design master. In 2003, he was honored with the French Literature and Art knight medal, and three years later, the top-flight award in Chinese architecture field-the Liang Si Cheng Architecture Prize. With two decades' endeavor, Cui Kai is praised as the pioneer of native designers, an essentially connecting figure between those preceding and those following. His works and essays enjoy high reputation among young architectural practitioners and learners. One of his works, the No.3 Villa of the Commune by the Great Wall was concluded into collection by Centre Pompidou after participating in the 8^th Venice Biennial.

Both in public architecture and smaller-scaled dwelling houses, there permeates a profound caring for humanity in Cui Kai's works. He believes function should take the priority in designing, a notion which is deemed as the basic professional moral of being an architect. Practically, the respect for humanity is realized in ways of meeting different users' requirements by designing respectively different spaces. It is one Cui Kai's signature characteristics is to deal with structure space and form in line with its functional aspect, while at the same time not being limited by it. The high-rise apartments of the Modern City, with varied design of public entrance and private living-rooms, the villa-like yards for ground-floor residents, the hanging courts for top-floor households, make a strong case for this point.

Attention to urban issues is another feature of Cui Kai's creations. In the process of fast urbanization in China, he focuses his study on the relationship between city life, city space, and city environment, hoping to provide for people a more comfortable living space. When designing the apartments for engineers in Dalian Software Park, instead of following the normal big size unit method, he designed sharable space and ample flatlets, which are not only affordable to engineers, but also able to facilitate social contacts in the shared space.

Instead of seeking for imposing individual style, he puts buildings in concordance with ambient characters. In other words, his works are no other than successful attempts to integrate into the pertinent surroundings. By borrowing, appreciating, and highlighting the landscape, the No.3 Villa of the Commune by the Great Wall reflects the design idea of a traditional Chinese garden in a modern pattern. The sunken layout, the unique viewing windows all help to build the ethereal feeling that stand apart from the chaos of the world. This refined design, like the Chinese paintings of traditional artists, is deeply rooted in Cui Kai's understanding of the Chinese native culture. Following is more detail on this and other of his extraordinary works:

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