AUBURN – An Auburn University faculty member has designed the entire campus of the first American-style university in China.

Peter Weiss, an associate professor in the AU College of Architecture, Design and Construction, has developed the master plan and designed 33 buildings and an iconic bell tower for SIAS International University in ancient Xinzheng City, 300 miles south of Beijing.

The faculty member in AU’s Department of Building Science is the only Westerner permitted by the government of China to design a campus in that country. The university is the only one in China that is permitted to fly the U.S. flag.

The Chinese university has erected 28 of the buildings and enrollment has increased from 100 to 10,000 since Weiss began the project in 2000. With construction under way on the remaining buildings, Chinese officials are preparing for enrollment to reach 12,000 next year. [...]

Weiss soon learned that the job would be one of the largest university design projects ever undertaken by an American architect. [Dr. Shawn] Chen wanted to build his modern university in Henan Province in China’s agricultural heartland. As part of a government-supported effort to bring capitalist principles to the communist nation, the university would prepare a new generation of graduates schooled in American business principles. [...]

“When I started working on the project, I was hoping to get 60 percent or 70 percent of my designs built the way I designed them,” Weiss recalls. “In fact, well over 90 percent have been built to design.” [...]