The 1st point is to initiate and build one Generative Design Laboratory in each of the involved Universities. These new academic entities will work in the field of generative design in architecture, urban design and industrial design as well as in reconstructing and managing the cultural and traditional identity’s codes of towns and natural-artificial environments. These fields involve research and experimental activities concerning the models of design methodology and teaching methodology in design in general as well as generative design. This new generative approach puts together the European tradition of creative works, starting from Italian renaissance cultural experience of ancient codes of harmony as rules to reach quality and beauty, years of modern western architectural theories and methods, and the emerging of rich Chinese traditions on abstract design thinking, dialectic design synthesis and practical design creation.

These Laboratories of Generative Design, GDLabs, will be built, at first, to extend to the other involved universities the already existing structure at the Politecnico di Milano University. This existing GDLab at Milan supports and manages this project.
At a later stage, once that the anticipated activities of collaboration with Europeans and Chinese industries and those of architectural and urban design in China will be activated, these GDLabs will continue to be the element of conjunction and cooperation between Europe and China and they will have an operational structure that will be self-financed by the above mentioned activities.  When these GDLabs, at the end of this program, will be self sustainable and autonomous concerning financial support, the GDLabs could be transformed in Generative Design Centers.

In the moment of their starting up, in the beginning of the activity of this project, every involved university will organize its own GDLab, under the responsibility of the people responsible in each university of this project. The Politecnico di Milano University, instead, will reorganize its own existing GDLab making it able to manage the project and to coordinate the activity of the other GDLabs.
 
Particularly: 
1.   
The GDLab of the Department of Architecture and Planning of Politecnico di Milano University is the entity that will manage the project. At the starting up of the project it will be endowed of an operational staff that, operating full time with two managers, will allow the management of the project. 
Besides, with the presence of a webmaster and a half-time technician, the GDLab will develop the management of the  “generative art” network and, of the internet website www.generativedesign.com. The webmaster will not only manage the website but he will upgrade it in real time, and all the parallel sites where all the activities of the program and of every single participant will be. Every person involved in the program will have, inside the site, his own web page. In other terms the staff of the GDLab of the Politecnico di Milano University will manage the net formed by the 5 computers of the GDLabs in way that the work in progress of each GDLab will be upgraded on the website.
All other actions involving the common activities of this program and the GDLab’s net will be managed by the GDLab of Milan.
The GDLab of Milan could be transformed in “Generative Art&Science International Center” if the activities will be enlarged to projects belonging to other scientific fields where the generative approach is useful (like mental health aids, or nano-technologies, or mecatronics) and if these incoming programs will involve other European and Asian universities that will joint together to establish the Center.
2.   
Four new GDLabs will be activated in Kassel, in Eindhoven, in Shanghai (Tongji Univ.) and in Tianjin. They will be constructed in the relevant universities in the departmental structures involved in this program. These GDLabs will be organized within the first two or three months starting from the beginning of the project by each of the responsible of the partner universities.  And the leader of the project will verify it directly.
These new GDLabs will have, as first operational and instrumental nucleus, the necessary equipment and human resources for the maintenance of the service for which they were born, that is the interchange between Europe and China and the management of the local activities of the project. Particularly each new GDLab, at its birth, will have: 
A.    a technician working at partial time
B.    a computer equipment composed by a pc connected to Internet and equipped for videoconferencing. The net connection will be provided by the involved universities.
How the new GDLabs will be established:
A.    In the universities of Kassel and Eindhoven, the GDLabs, that don’t exist at the moment, will be born from research’s structures and existing researchers that have already expressed results and experimentations in the field of the generative approach. The GDLab of Politecnico di Milano University has already experimented collaborations and a methodological convergence on the teaching logics with these research groups.
B.    In the Chinese universities the future convergence in these approaches has been already checked with meetings and lectures made by Prof. Soddu in Shanghai and Beijin, in which Chinese teaching people has expressed the interest and the opportunity to activate such Labs for the development of the generative approach and methodology of teaching design and for the use of advanced technologies to fit the complexity of today needs and market. So the new GDLabs will be born inside this universities and supported by them. 
Activity of the GDLab’s Net: 
1.    maintaining active the internal network of interchange between the partners.
2.    Extending and Improving Generative Art & Science Network internationally.
Generative Art & Science Network is an existing international network established in 1998 and managed by the Milan GDLab with the annual international conferences on Generative Art. It is growing each year with more and more updated and important references. The website is www.generativeart.com and it has become the most important website in the sector. In this website it’s possible to find links to teaching experiences and research activity of generative art in architecture, engineering, music, visual art, advanced representation, industrial design, town design, cognitive science, robotics, poetry, mecatronics.
The aim is to improve this network and use it for information, joint teaching and design activities.
One of the 1st acts of Generative Design Lab’s net will be the opening of a forum that will give the actual level of interest and news about incoming questions linked to generative approach.
3.    maintaining active the website www.generativedesign.com. As the pages on research's activities and those of  direct support to the teaching activities (summer courses, workshops, etc.). Every teaching experimentation will be in fact reported, in real time, in the website.  This website will be a common website (transforming the website www.generativedesign.com from the website of GDLab of Politecnico di Milano University to the website of all the Labs involved in the project) where all the activities will be presented. All the activities realized in this program will be transformed in on-line information. In particular:
o    The research programs and Master/PhD Thesis will be published on-line.
o    The workshop results and events will be published on-line in real time.
o    The teaching experiment on design methodology will be realized as distance education too, using Internet communication. An important activity of Generative Design Labs will be the experimentation of teaching design methodology with distance-education, using Internet website. The summer courses activated each year in the European universities will be transferred in Internet interactive pages and forum exchange that will be used by a selected group of postgraduate student. The people responsible for this programme will evaluate the results and will verify if and how to go forward with this teaching experiment.
o    All the activity of the program will be transparent and communicated by the Internet site www.generativedesign.com.

4.    to organize the summer courses in the European universities 
5.    to organize the workshops in the Chinese universities
6.    to organize lectures about Generative Design Approach in China and Europe.
7.    to organize exhibitions of Generative Art, Science and Projects in China and Europe.
8.    to organize seminars on line for the activity of supervision of the theses of master and doctorate that involve, as supervisors, European and Chinese people participating to this project.
9.    to organize meeting with possible European and Chinese companies and industrial partners and with possible partners belonging to the industry of the constructions in China and Europe. The Labs will make external contracts with European-Chinese manufacturing industries for the activation of Euro-China agreement in the field of intelligent industrial production and with Chinese entities and European companies for agreements in building architectural and urban design generative projects.
10.    to activate periodic sessions of videoconferencing between the partners of this project. 
11.    to activate sessions of videoconferencing between the supervisors and the postgraduates for the verification of the work in progress. 
12.    to manage an interactive forum, inside the website, on the topics of generative logical approach, on the use of generative logic in teaching design, on the possible further applications and on what will be thought convenient for the updating of information of the active group in the project. 
13.    the experimentation of teaching design methodology with distance-education, using Internet website. These experiments will improve the teaching methodology in design using the traditional cultural approach of European and Chinese culture.
14.    In any case, it will be used as an opportunity for exchange and a facility to increase the co-operation between different cultural and technological customs and approaches aiming at the result of a well integrated and established models to approach design and design education. The Labs will be the space where people involved will prepare papers and teaching activity, accessing to the information of other Labs and verifying with the other Labs the works in progress.

How people works in the GDLabs: 
Every GDLab is open to the collaboration and contribution of teachers and postgraduate students that participate in the program, also if they participate only at one of the activities: 
1.    each participant must activate his own web page and must upgrade this page following his work in progress (the work will be valuated using these pages). This upgrading will happen in the GDLab. The technician will upload the material in the server of the GDLab in Milan. 
2.    each people involved in the project can activate a special session of interchange on his research project or on his teaching experimentation through videoconferencing, giving preventive communication to all the other GDLabs. Each technician of laboratory must perform, with the support of the GDLab in Milan, the periodically activation of these videoconferences.
3.    In the GDLab of Milan, people will work for managing this project, organizing international conference, summer courses, workshops and meetings, and all the other activities of this project. 
4.    All the GDLabs will verify their activity twice a year and will present their work in the annual international conference GA that GDLab of Milan will organize every year, as in the past four years.

The cultural field involved in the activity of Generative Design Labs and the potential subdivision or area of research/teaching programs/projects/topics are tentatively listed, but not limited to, as the following:

o    European/Chinese tradition of design concepts on forms and spaces (interior and exterior)
o    European/Chinese tradition of design representation
o    European/Chinese codes of design harmony and contradiction
o    European/Chinese definition of objectives in design processes
o    European/Chinese epistemology of scientific and non-scientific creative thinking and discovering
o    European/Chinese identification of abstract paradigms of spatial structures.
o    European/Chinese management of complexity.
o    European/Chinese approaches of practical design reasoning
o    European/Chinese approaches in application of generative design methods in the identity of old towns and small vicinities
o    European/Chinese approaches in the development of regional and large-scale identities
o    European/Chinese processes of design generation and evolution
o    European/Chinese methods of construction process and information management
o    European/Chinese collaboration on application of AI production in building industry
o    European/Chinese views of estates, technologies, development and preservation

Further, the Generative Design Lab’s net (and the Generative Art&Science International Centre, if established) will be the structure to improve the activities of this project when the support of EC will end.

For Thesis and research activity the program will have a Steering Committee, made with the responsible of each involved university (Celestino Soddu, Hans Dehlinger, Bouke de Vries, Bowei Wang, Changming Yang).
A defined number of thesis of master and doctorate will be focused on the topic of this program and will be managed by a joint body of professors of all the partners of this programme.
Each involved professor will identify some (1-3) master (of 5th year degree) thesis that will be developed under the common supervision of the Asia-link programme.
The whole number of master thesis will be 10 in the two years of programme, divided among the five partners.
The number of doctorate thesis will be 5, belonging to all the involved universities.
The steering committee will select these thesis among the proposals coming from the partners.
The programme does not realize new master or doctorate courses but, inside the teaching activity existing in each university, each professor identifies some theme concerning the topic of generative design approach and Europe-China relationship. Once identified the thesis, the supervisor will involve other professors, belonging to the universities of this Asia-link programme, as co-supervisor of his thesis. For example the institutional course of Prof. Celestino Soddu is the Final Synthesis Laboratory of the VI Faculty of Engineering-Architecture at master level. He will identify, inside the 60 thesis of his Lab, some thesis that will be developed jointing other Asia-link partners as co-supervisors.
The work in progress of each thesis will be weekly updated in a non-public Internet page in the site www.generativedesign.com opened only to supervisors and, later, when finished, in an open page of the official website. Discussions will be held monthly using videoconference, and the results will be presented in the annual Generative Design International conference. Videoconferences of conference, project events and thesis defence will be open to interested postgraduate students of all partner schools to enhance the mutual knowledge and exchange.

These courses are conducted, each year, mainly (but not only) at the participating European universities, Milan, Kassel and Eindhoven, using an extended number of professors. The aim is to let the participating European/Chinese/ attendants to have the introductory orientation about the extent and the scope of the defined discipline of generative design approaches and its related studies and examples. The courses are also providing excellent first opportunity for Chinese personnel to travel to Europe and meet with all the partners. Each summer course will have the following three sections:
a)    generative design in architecture,
b)    generative design in industrial/interior/habitat design, and
c)    generative design methodologies and the role of technologies.

The courses are conducted in three universities for a total of 15 days each year. In each university will take place one section (around 5 days) attended by the twelve postgraduate student arrived from China and twelve postgraduate students of the hosting university. So, each year, twelve Chinese and 36 European postgraduate students will be involved.

Each European University will organize his own section of five days and proposes the application of their participants.
Postgraduate Students will be selected by the responsible of each involved universities through an application with curricula and one page of expression of interest. The selection will prefer people who are interested in the cultural relationship between Europe and China.

The sections will be lectured by professors from European universities and from a Chinese professor that will accompany the postgraduate students, with possible guest speakers, and two European assistants/tutors.

In particular (as example):
Milan: Generative Design Methodology, 3-4 Prof. from Milan, 2 tutors from Milan, 1 Prof. from Kassel, 2 accompaining Prof from China, 1 invited guest, 12 European postgraduate students, and 12 Chinese postgraduate students. (five full days)
Kassel: Generative Industrial Design, 2-3 Prof.  From Kassel, 1 Prof from Milan, 1 Prof from Eindhoven, 2 tutors from Kassel, 2 accompaining Prof from China, 1 invited guest, 12 European postgraduate students, 12 Chinese postgraduate students. (five full days)
Eindhoven: Generative Architectural Design, 1-2 Prof from Eindhoven, 1-2 Prof from Milan, 1 Prof from Kassel, 2 accompaining Prof from China, 1 tutors from Eindhoven, 1 tutor from Kassel, 1 invited guest, 12 European postgraduate students, 12 Chinese postgraduate students. (five full days)
The European postgraduate students can be different each course, coming from different universities in Europe, and the Chinese postgraduate students will be the same in the 3 sessions (Milan, Kassel and Eindhoven) with a single travel from China.

These summer courses will have an important role in the project because of:
1.    increase the relationship between young teachers of Europe and China.
2.    Identify common references in teaching architectural design and industrial design
3.    let emerge possible opportunities for jointing researches and project activities between Europe and China.

The workshops will be organized for teaching staff and postgraduate students of the partner universities as well as participants from other institutes associated to the project activities. Each workshop will be focused on one or more specific areas of the program topics, application and practical experimental oriented and more in depth and in detail as a design/study workshop experience.

Workshops are organized each year in Tianjin University and in Tongji University and these universities are responsible for the organization and for the theme of the design experience. The theme will in the field of architecture and/or town design, and this case study will be located in China. The GDLabs and the Steering Committee, choosing the theme, must focus the possibility that the study case could be matter of agreement among Chinese government’s entities, European companies and Generative Design Labs for the realization of these projects.

The activity format is:
1. the participants:
    8 professors of European universities (Milano, Kassel, Eindhoven)
    4 professors of Chinese universities
    around 30 postgraduate students coming from Chinese universities.
2. The structure:
The participants will be divided into multiple design teams.  Each team will be jointed together by 1 or 2 professors of the European and Chinese universities involved in the programme and 5 postgraduate students for two weeks, one week in Shanghai, Tongij University, one week in Tianjin University.
3. Activity:
During these weeks each team develop the common case study. The team realizes an architecture-urban design project using the generative approach.
At the end, each team will present a project that will be discussed with all the partners through on-site meetings as well as video-conferencing. All results will be published in the website www.generativedesign.com
If, subsequently, Chinese entities would like to realize these architectural projects, the matter must be defined with a specific economic agreement, signed by the Steering Committee, involving designers, GDLabs and external partners.

These workshops are important for the programme because:
1.    explicit the generative design approach in view of the teaching activity.
2.    identify the relevant points of view of the Chinese cultural approach in front of European design tradition.
3.    fit together the dynamic processes proper of European and Chinese cultural and construct the cultural mutual opportunities in exchanging teaching activities
4.    let emerge real opportunities to involve Europe in Chinese fast development of building construction and of environment evolution.

A set of selected joint research programmes with topics in architectural design methodology, Interior design and building design evolution in China, traditional design and approaches, advanced generative design, art and technologies, or other proper topics for interested postgraduate students of involved universities will be managed by this project.
The research work under such programme will be jointly carried out after the Steering Committee formed by the responsible people of each involved university (Celestino Soddu, Hans Dehlinger, Bouke de Vries, Bowei Wang, Changming Yang), makes its selection and approval of programme proposals.
The first deadline of research program proposal will be 6 month after the starting up of the project. The maximum number of such programmes to be accepted will be 12 for the duration of one year. The researchers must come from all the involved universities and from others (European and Asiatic) too.
The steering committee will take care to choose proposals coming from different universities and belonging to Europe an to Asia in an equal number.
The research programmes will be managed using the structure of Generative Design Labs. This makes possible to get and exchange information and an active and continuous support through Internet. Each programme will be developed jointing al least one European and one Chinese partner.
1.    The call for proposals will be launched in the international conference GA2002 (and a second one in GA2003), in way to arrive to an extended number of people interested in the topic.
2.    The call for proposal will be written under the responsibility of the leader of this programme, hearing the steering committee.
3.    Proposals will have autonomous financial support. No financial support from Asia-link programme. The accepted research people could have a position in the program, like support staff of GDLabs, if the position will be free. And they can participate to the activities (summer courses and workshops) of the program.
4.    People will be selected by the Steering Committee valuating if the proposal and curricula:
A.    Fit the aims of this Asia-link programme.
B.    Develops an advanced field able to involve European and Chinese industrial activities or building and construction activities.
C.    Develops advanced theoretical sectors of European and Chinese cultural approach and tradition.
D.    Develops generative teaching approach and/or advanced distant education using generative logics.
E.    Develops generative approaches in identifying cultural and traditional codes.

Applied projects in Chinese building and/or design industry will be a component of the overall proposed project during its second year.
Generative Design Labs will executed, by first, these projects identifying the feasible industrial collaborator and suitable project tasks that fit the scope of an application of the generative design approaches.
1.    In the first six-seven months the Generative Design Labs will organize a sequence of meeting with the European and Chinese industries, involved in advanced possibility of intelligent production, in sight of a mutual interest to develop innovative programs that run toward the incoming requests of the market. At the end of this first research, the steering committee will choose 4 of these industrial project and will plan their development using the structure of Generative Design Labs. Each applied project will support the technological and strategic evolution of a particular industrial production, using possible supports from European industries.  The financial and operative agreement must be approved by the leader of this programme, Prof. Soddu, under the supervision of the steering committee.
2.    In the same time, first six-seven months, the Generative Design Labs will plan a sequence of meeting with the Chinese entities involved in the construction-building activity, sector that has now in China a strong developing, to identify possible occasion for architectural and town design projects that are important for improving the cultural and local identities of Chinese environment. These generative projects will be also realized using technological and financial support from European industries and firms interested in a mutual opportunity. At the end of this first approach, the steering committee will identify the architectural projects, town design projects and operative research concerning town identity’ codes and plan their development using the structure of Generative Design Labs. The number of these projects will be 6 for year. The financial and operative agreement must be approved by the leader of this programme, Prof. Soddu, under the supervision of the steering committee.

Each of such applied projects will be under the supervision of the leader of this programme and under the responsibility of (at least) one European professor and one Chinese professor. The project will be carried out by a team comprising European-Chinese postgraduate students, in equal number, that have completed or are finishing programmes in the selected topic.

This activity is self-sustainable, being supported by industries.

The international Generative Design/Art conference, held annually at Politecnico di Milano, will be expanded by inserting a special session/chapter for the activity of this proposal project. Each research program, teaching experience and material and results will be presented and will be opened for discussions by all interested project participants as well as conference participants from all over the world, in a dedicated round table forum.
This occasion and venue will be used to verify and evaluate the implementation progress and results of the proposed project program and to bring this Asia-Link funded project to the light of larger international community of the most influential academic and industrial impact in the field of practice and research of the generative design approaches.
This evaluation will be managed
1.    using the conference scientific committee to verify the papers presented in the conference:
2.    asking to this committee to evaluate the work in progress of this Asia-Link programme using the material present in the website www.generativedesign.com that collect teaching experiences and approaches, thesis in progress, research activities and workshops results. The scientific committee involved will be invited to give his opinion in a round table forum in the conference.

All the scholarly and creative works regarding the study of methodology of generative approaches and its practice, particularly with content of exchange of European and Chinese design traditions and cultures in managing design processes, in issues and ideas on related generative design experience in China, in design education as well as design practice, will be selectively published in a book at the end of this first period of the program supported by European Commission founds. Other related articles and papers will also be published in various journals and magazines of different languages (e.g., English and Chinese) in Europe and China (during and after the 24 months duration of the project).
Particularly:
1.    papers regarding teaching advanced experiments and research activity managed by the Generative Design Labs (at least one-two for each GDLab) will be published in the book of proceedings of international conferences GA2003 and GA2004. The GA conference publishes the proceedings book each year before the conference. This publication is self-sustainable.
2.    The final report of this Asia-Link programme will be published at the end of the two years program and presented at GA2004 International conference.
3.    Each summer course will be published in the Internet site and, if possible, in paper.
4.    The results of design workshops will be published in the website of GDLabs and in Chinese magazines or in the books of Chinese university press.