News about design in China
“In cities around the globe, change happens almost instantly. Buildings rise…disappear, and skylines morph before one’s eyes. There is no better example of this, of course, than China. From Ordos to Shanghai, Chinese cities are in a constant state of flux, as the Chinese people willfully abandon signs of the past and embrace the new”. Continue reading.
Studio-X Beijing seems to have risen from the ashes lately. This Saturday (16 March), they will hold an intriguing discussion concerning the development of and contribution towards Indian architecture by Le Corbusier and Louis Isadore Kahn. Details under the cut.
“Shan Shui City (city of mountains and water) is one of MAD’s latest projects; to be built in Guiyang, China. [Stemming from] a concept which dates back to ancient mountain-water worship, followed by Wu Zixu’s idea of locating cities by observing the earth and examining the water…Shan Shui City [demonstrates] unique spatial planning…with implications on urban sustainability”. Via designboom.
Professor Song Jianming is Vice Dean of China Academy of Art (CAA) in Hangzhou. Heavily involved in chromatology and colour trends, he established Colour Research Studio in 1993, and is also Vice President of China Colour Trend Society and China Architecture Culture Research Society. He has completed city colour planning for many cities and regions across China, and is currently working in this area for a railway station in Nanjing. Design China sat down with Professor Song Jianming on his most recent trip to Beijing to unearth more.
Blinking City, an exhibition and pop-up shop by Instant Hutong for Beijing Design Week 2012, surrounded visitors with interactive maps and urban patterns that “progressively define an aesthetic merging form and colour inspired by a nomadic and itinerant urban geography”. The background wall displayed 32 new digital prints of a mapped Beijing on lenticular panels, which varied according to the movement of the viewer. Read more via Dezeen.
Results for Re-thinking Shanghai 2012 are now in! See them via CreativeHunt.
Personally on the Scene: Art Expats in Beijing Exhibition Project is delighted to present its inaugural exhibition Microurbanism Interactions by Italian artist collective Marcella Campa and Stefano Avesani.
Initiated by Beijing-based curator Tang Zehui, Personally on the Scene is dedicated to presenting and promoting the work of foreign artists living and working in Beijing through a series of solo exhibitions and accompanied catalogues. Microurbanism Interactions, the first exhibition of the series, opens on 18 May at the Lobby Gallery of the Landgent Center in Beijing.
“The fast and enormous urban development of Beijing has transformed the city into a metropolis made of suburban residential compounds, abandoned industrial plants, community housing blocks from the 70s and 80s, and popular self-grown villages.
Caochangdi [an increasingly popular creative hotspot] is a peripheral village on the 5th Ring Road, where most of the buildings are spontaneous houses of families producing vegetables or working in the metropolis. It has that popular selfishness-with-basic-economic-exchanges character that we can usually find in the central hutongs of Beijing. The only difference is that here we are many kilometers away from the center, there are no historical buildings, and no tourist would ever think of visiting the area”. Via ArchDaily.
Born in Shanghai, Fang Xiaofeng graduated in architecture from Tsinghua University, Beijing. A curator for Beijing International Design Triennial (BIDT) 2011, he now teaches at Academy of Arts & Design, Tsinghua University and, since 2007, has been acting as editor for Zhuangshi magazine – “the only art and design core journal in Mainland China”. Fang Xiaofeng possesses a strong interest in ethics and responsible design, and has been changing the direction of Zhuangshi magazine to promote these concepts in China as a result. I caught up with him to find out more.
Architecture and design company 10 are running an interesting competition right now whereby creatives have been asked to devise a sustainable intervention for Suzhou Creek in Shanghai. The intervention can be anywhere along the creek; it must occupy at least 150,000 square meters, and comprise of residential, office and commercial facilities. Judges are specifically looking for designs that address issues surrounding power generation, air and water pollution. Via CreativeHunt.
