Mr. Junyang Shi, a PhD candidate in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Hong Kong, and his supervisor, Professor Wei Pan, were awarded the Best Overall Paper at the International Conference on Computing in Civil Engineering (i3CE 2026). This conference was organized by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and held in Incheon, South Korea, June 14-17, 2026.

 

i3CE is a premier international conference on computing technologies for civil and construction engineering. The Best Overall Paper Award is the conference’s highest honor, given to a single paper ranked first among the 325 papers accepted from universities and research institutions worldwide. The winning paper is entitled "An AI-Driven Framework for Shear Wall Layout Optimization in High-Rise Concrete Modular Buildings", co-authored by Mr. Junyang Shi, Dr. Yang Zhang, Mr. Yang Li, and Professor Wei Pan, from HKU’s Department of Civil Engineering and MiCLab. This paper develops a closed-loop AI framework that encodes modular standardization into structural design through DfMA-based Geometric Layout Synchronization (GLS), enabling automated FEA-validated optimization for high-rise concrete modular buildings.