In Futian, the city's bustling core where land is at a premium, the need was especially acute.

The mandate was tricky. To solve the chronic shortage, new schools had to accommodate 1.5 times the planned number of classes, requiring three to four times the standard floor area, all on tiny urban plots.

Rising from 'chaos'

When He first stood on the planned site for the Hongling school in 2017, he saw barren yellow earth, leveled from the former Antuo Hill quarry, and roads yet to be paved."It was a scene of chaos, nothing but construction vehicles," he recalled.

This "blank slate" offered no existing urban context to work with, but the task was brutally clear — on a tight 1-hectare plot, a planned 24-class school needed to be expanded to 36 classes. The total gross floor area, excluding basements, needed to cover 25,000 square meters, resulting in a floor area ratio over three times that of a traditional primary school.