Helios received the 2023 Zayed Sustainability Prize. The USD 150,000 award supported the implementation of a large-scale retrofit at Beijing No. 35 High School’s Xinjiekou campus, associated with the historic Lu Xun Residence setting.
Completed in August 2025, the project replaced approximately 185 m² of conventional glazing with high-performance vacuum glazing and installed a further 30.8 m² of photovoltaic vacuum glazing on the experimental building. The photovoltaic system was connected to the building’s electrical distribution system for on-site educational and experimental use.
Unlike conventional solar panels added visibly to roofs or façades, the system integrates transparent photovoltaic elements within vacuum-insulated glazing. This allows the windows to contribute simultaneously to:
renewable electricity generation; thermal insulation; acoustic performance; daylight access; and the preservation of the building’s historic exterior appearance.The vacuum encapsulation system is designed to reduce exposure of photovoltaic materials to oxygen and moisture, addressing two major causes of photovoltaic degradation. Research associated with the technology projects a substantially extended service life, potentially approaching the lifespan of the building envelope itself.
The Beijing installation was not limited to a conceptual prototype. It progressed through measurement, engineering design, institutional approval, procurement, factory production, installation, electrical connection, and commissioning. In recognition of Yingxi Tang’s leadership and contribution, the school established a commemorative plaque at the project site.
The project therefore marked a transition from student research to implemented public infrastructure: a Zayed-supported innovation installed in a functioning school and used as a long-term demonstration of energy efficiency, clean power, and sustainability education.
HELIOS X
Taking Renewable Heritage Retrofit from Beijing to Rural Shanxi
Following the completion of the Beijing project, Yingxi Tang initiated Helios X, a new phase designed to test whether the same technological pathway could benefit rural communities and traditional heritage buildings beyond the urban context.
Helios X asks a broader question:
Can renewable-energy innovation help abandoned rural heritage become habitable, economically active, and culturally relevant again?
The programme is led by Mercury Academy, an innovation-education organisation founded by Yingxi Tang. Within the Academy, the Sustainability Lab and the Culture Heritage & ICH Lab are responsible for research, design, technological development, educational programming, cultural interpretation, implementation planning, and commercial activation.
Helios X applies the lessons of the Beijing project to Shanxi Province, where population ageing, youth out-migration, declining maintenance, and changing expectations for modern living have contributed to the abandonment of traditional cave dwellings and historic rural buildings.
Its objective is not simply to install renewable-energy equipment. It is to create a replicable regeneration model combining:
traditional construction knowledge; architectural conservation; passive environmental design; vacuum and photovoltaic glazing; modern indoor-environment systems; education and youth participation; cultural tourism; community services; and sustainable commercial operation.HELIOS X PHASE ONE-MERCURY SUSTAINABLE YAODONG VILLA PROJECT INTRO:
Regenerating Abandoned Cave Dwellings as Living Heritage
The first implemented phase of Helios X is the Mercury Sustainable Yaodong Villa Project in Wenxi County, Shanxi Province.
Traditional yaodong cave dwellings are deeply adapted to the landscape and climate of the Loess Plateau. Their thick earthen structures provide high thermal inertia and reduce exposure to extreme outdoor temperature fluctuations. However, many existing dwellings no longer meet contemporary requirements for seismic safety, drainage, sanitation, daylighting, indoor air quality, moisture control, and year-round comfort.
Rather than demolishing these buildings and replacing them with high-energy conventional construction, the project regenerates them through a combination of inherited knowledge and contemporary engineering.
The design retains and reinterprets:
earth-brick vaulting; thick rammed-loess walls; local earth and stone; passive solar orientation; natural high–low ventilation; breathable lime-and-straw finishes; traditional drainage and moisture-control methods; and the spatial relationship between the cave dwellings and the surrounding loess landscape.
New entrance structures draw inspiration from the protective architectural language of the Mogao Caves and reinterpret regional Jin-style aesthetics for contemporary use. Architectural specialists from the Yuanmingyuan Society of China provided professional guidance on heritage protection, structural reinforcement, and the adaptive reuse of the curved cave-vault system.
Vacuum glazing and photovoltaic vacuum-glazing technologies are integrated into the renewed building envelope to improve insulation and enable renewable-energy generation while minimizing visual disruption to the traditional architectural character.
The project also introduces the Five-Constant Indoor Environmental System, incorporating radiant heating and cooling, humidity control, fresh-air replacement, acoustic management, filtration, and micro-positive-pressure operation. Traditional earthen thermal mass performs the primary climatic work, while modern systems provide precise adjustment for contemporary health, comfort, education, and wellness use.
Current Scale and Verified Progress
The wider regeneration base is planned to include 1,000 yaodong units.
To date:
28 cave units have been completed; approximately 5,500 m² of regenerated space has been created; construction has generated approximately 30,300 person-days, equivalent to 242,400 labour-hours; approximately 100 workers participated in the first completed phase, including traditional construction teams and modern environmental-system specialists.The completed and planned spaces support multiple functions, including:
Mercury Academy educational facilities; contemporary residences; wellness accommodation; low-carbon lodging; community services; intangible-cultural-heritage workshops; cultural interpretation; research; and creative production.
This functional diversity is essential to the project’s definition of living heritage. The objective is not to preserve the yaodong as an architectural specimen, but to return it to active social, educational, cultural, and economic use.
International Recognition
The architectural regeneration design received a 2026 MUSE Design Awards Gold Award, recognising its contribution to the protective renewal of traditional yaodong architecture.
The project’s story, Living Heritage: Yaodong Culture and Climate Resilience, was also selected for the 2026 UNESCO–ICHCAP Living Legacies awareness campaign. This provides an international platform for presenting the project as a case of cultural continuity, climate adaptation, youth participation, and rural regeneration.
Together, these recognitions show that the project is relevant at several levels:
as an architectural intervention; as a cultural-heritage initiative; as a climate-resilience model; as an educational platform; and as a strategy for sustainable rural development.THE NEXT PHASE OF HELIOS X
INTRO:
Regenerating a 200-Year-Old Shanxi Heritage Complex
The next phase of Helios X will focus on the regeneration of an approximately 200-year-old architectural complex in Wenxi County.
The site will be restored and adaptively reused as a community wedding and cultural-events destination composed of:
a Bride’s Family Courtyard, or Niangjia Dayuan; and a Groom’s Family Courtyard, or Pojia Dayuan.
The project will explore how traditional Shanxi wedding customs, historic architecture, community participation, and renewable energy can be integrated into a viable contemporary destination.
The intervention will include:
historical and architectural documentation; structural and conservation assessment; restoration of traditional building elements; community and wedding-culture research; adaptive-reuse planning; energy-demand modelling; heritage-sensitive photovoltaic vacuum-glazing integration; cultural interpretation; operational design; and commercial activation.
The renewable-energy retrofit will be designed to avoid material alteration to the visible historic façade. In this way, Helios X extends the original Beijing principle—clean-energy transformation without cultural erasure—from a protected urban educational setting to a rural heritage and community context.
Mercury Academy
Education, Design, Technology, and Regeneration
Mercury Academy is not structured solely as a conventional school. It is an integrated education and innovation platform combining:
advanced project-based learning; applied research; architectural and product design; science and technological innovation; heritage and intangible-cultural-heritage interpretation; sustainability consulting; implementation planning; community engagement; and responsible commercial activation.
Students work alongside educators, craftspeople, engineers, designers, heritage experts, enterprises, and communities on consequential real-world projects. Young people are given meaningful roles in research, documentation, prototyping, communication, and evaluation, while qualified adults retain responsibility for technical safety, legal compliance, heritage protection, and professional approval.
The Helios and Helios X programmes illustrate this educational model as a complete cycle:
Research → Design → Technical Review → Implementation → Monitoring → Reflection → Replication
The physical sites become living laboratories where students can observe how ideas move from theory into buildings, communities, policies, and long-term operations.
A Wider Portfolio of Sustainability Innovation
Helios X is the central heritage and renewable-energy programme within a wider Mercury Academy sustainability portfolio.
Gaia Circularity Project
The Gaia Project creates a school-based resource loop for food residues such as fruit peels, vegetable leaves, leftovers, and coffee grounds. Through the Academy-designed Gaia Regeneration Box, suitable organic residues are converted into tested ecological soil amendments for soil restoration and plant growth, including potential application within the Shanxi campus’s extensive lacquer-tree landscape.
Poseidon Marine Project
The Poseidon Project explores the use of kelp fibre, shell powder, and traditional lacquer coatings in small-scale renewable-energy devices for remote-island environments. The project connects marine protection, local materials, composite development, durability testing, and community-scale energy innovation.
Together, these projects demonstrate Mercury Academy’s broader mission: to enable young people to work across education, science, technology, design, culture, and enterprise in response to real sustainability challenges.
A Green Heritage Education Chain
The completed Beijing installation and the expanding Shanxi programme form what Mercury Academy describes as a Green Heritage Education Chain.
Beijing demonstrates that renewable-energy systems can be incorporated into a heritage-sensitive urban school environment. Shanxi tests how the same technological pathway can support abandoned cave dwellings, rural community facilities, traditional craftsmanship, cultural tourism, and climate-adaptive habitation.
The chain connects:
urban and rural contexts; modern engineering and traditional knowledge; energy generation and energy conservation; cultural heritage and contemporary use; student learning and public infrastructure; and technological innovation with community regeneration.
Helios therefore represents more than a solar-glazing project. It is an evolving model showing how education can produce implemented climate solutions, how technology can strengthen rather than erase cultural identity, and how heritage buildings can become active infrastructure for a cleaner and more resilient future.
- Photovoltaic Vacuum-glazing
- Shanxi Longyuan
- The moment the new energy power lights up
- Vacuum Glazing
- Commemorative Plaque
- Introduce Project to Ambassador of UAE