SHANSHAN QI, received her B.A.with distinction and Summa Cum Laude from Columbia University, and her MArch. I from Harvard GSD. She was selected as the solo Peter Rice Fellowship recipient to participate in the Renzo Piano Building Workshop fellowship program in Genoa, Italy in 2010. She received her Ph.D.and thesis project in Gold Medal with the noted Pritzker winner & Professor Wang Shu, in 2020.

SHANSHAN QI returned to Hangzhou and started STUDIO QI ARCHITECTS in 2013. She entered Tibet for over 60 times and has been working on Songtsam Resort projects since 2016. As the head of a sole female-lead firm, she was listed in the Green Women Power 100 in 2020 and won the Unsung Hero-Female Frontier Awards in 2021; she spoke three times at TEDx conferences.

SHANSHAN QI believes being an architect requires considerable  sensibilities and significant responsibilities. Her work emphasizes the negotiation between nature, architecture and current rural/urban conditions in China.