The interrelation between people and spaces is central to our understanding of historical development and future sustainable urban regeneration. Our physical and mental perception of the “everyday” is intrinsically linked to the spaces that we occupy which in turn influence our macroscale design logic and spatial synthesis. The Design school exhibition offers a spatial and temporal bridge of people/community’s interaction with places and the material world on a display of how those influences inform our planning and design approaches in the heritage conservation and urban regeneration context. The ‘Shuangta’ exhibition is based on an initiative of the Design School to sustain the longstanding engagement of XJTLU communities with the wealth of cultural heritage in Suzhou. The exhibition comprises a range of insitu, site-specific design responses that were aimed to engage with the old and new stakeholders/users of the places in the Shuangta Historic District, arguably the most intriguingly mixed ground where opposite values, old and new cultures collide and reconcile. Two national heritage sites – the Twin Pagodas (Shuangta) and the Arhat Hall – have been familiar landmarks for both local communities and citizens in Suzhou. This exhibition also synthesizes what the XJTLU architecture student magazine, GRID, has reflected, shot, designed and written in 2021 with a common focus on Design Building (DB). The discourse and everyday architectural teaching and learning that occurs in DB forms an important thread in the development of the Department of Architecture, with DB becoming an important motif of XJTLU. The brilliant results from a talented selection of designers from the Industrial Design department at XJTLU, working together with our passionate and committed design tutors are also exhibited. The breadth of contexts is both illuminating and innovative, showing critical and iterative development processes and revealing some excellent design concepts and outcomes.