The Alumni Grove Memorial at Tianjin Polytechnic University brings memories of the old campus into the new one. Beside the lake, it offers alumni a place to revisit their student years, pause and gather. Under the theme “Song of Youth,” a ground-level base carrying fragments of campus history and a light white framework turn remembrance into a space that people can walk through.

The base, called the “Foundation Stone,” represents the foundations built by successive generations of students. Eleven memory nodes are drawn from the old campus’s “Six Roads and One Lake,” and a grid is formed in relation to the difference in orientation between the old and new campus axes. Parts of the base are lowered and shifted to create stepped levels and sunken memory courts. An image of the old gate is engraved on glass, and historical photographs appear on weathering-steel panels. As alumni descend into these courts, familiar fragments of the campus invite them to recall their own student experiences.

The “White Forest of Youth” consists of closely spaced slender white poles and abstract wing-shaped elements. Six flight poses intertwine at different heights, with coloured acrylic accents, forming an undulating, open canopy beside the lake. The poles echo the vertical rhythm of the library facade, while gaps retain views towards the campus and water. The sunken courts invite a pause to look back; the soaring wings bring a light, youthful presence above. Together they form a memorial grove where personal recollections and the university’s shared history can be encountered in everyday movement.