World Wide Book

You can now buy our book worldwide in the bookstores listed below.
And of course you can buy the book online.

ASIA
Singapore: Basheer Graphic Books

Hong Kong: China Publishers Services

Beijing, CN: Timezone 8
Shanghai, CN: Garden Books
Shenzhen, CN: Stage Read the rest of this entry »

Dislike

Image: Rendering Chongqing Chaotianmen, Moshe Safdie architects

We all spend useless time on the web. For example with ‘liking’ or commenting on posts on Facebook. That’s what I did as well on December 2nd, when I commented ‘unbelievably uuugly and a total Sands knock off’ on Moshe Safdie’s scheme for Chongqing Chaotianmen.With ‘Sands’, I referred to the Singapore Marina Sands, a project that Safdie did a few years ago, and that has quite some resemblances to it: Read the rest of this entry »

Allmetropolis at Shenzhen Biennale 2011

Last week, our new exhibition Allmetropolis opened in the Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism & Architecture. The show, which is located in venue B10 in OCT Loft, shows a comparison of the urban areas of Shenzhen and Flevoland, the largest mainmade island in the world. The main argument of the project: what would happen if we turn Flevoland into a Special Economic Zone?
To be continued…

Team:
Concept & Research: Michiel Hulshof & Daan Roggeveen
Research assistance: Xia Yixuan
Translation: Song Xinlin, Amanda Wan
Concept graphic design: Job, Joris & Marieke Read the rest of this entry »

Allmetropolis: learning from China’s growth model

Starting Thursday 8 December, Go West Project will present a new research project during the Shenzhen/Hong Kong Biennale of Architecture. Central theme: What would happen if Europe created a Special Economic Zones following the Chinese model? To anwer that question, we compare two regions that started their urban growth at the end of the 1970s: one, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone in China, the other, the manmade island of Flevoland in the Netherlands.

Over the years, both urban regions have developed in a completely different manner. The New Towns in Flevoland has a population of 400,000, for large part commuters working in the Randstad and looking for a suburban living environment. Shenzhen, for its part, has grown into ‘the factory of the world’ with more than 10 million migrant workers from all over China.

In the exhibition Allmetropolis, Go West Project compares policy, economy, residential areas and future plans of the two regions. It then poses the question what would happen in Flevoland would implement China’s successful model for growth, meaning it would transform itself into a Special Economic Zone with preferential tax and other policies compared to the surrounding area.

This research project addresses consequences of current international developments where Europe is increasingly looking at China for financial help to solve the debt crisis. When Europe wants to attract Chinese investors, it’s not more than logical to have a close look at Chinese models for investment and growth.

Venue: B10, OCT, Nanshan, Shenzhen
Exhibition from 8 December 2011 – 18 February 2012

Online Book sales

ONLINE
You can order our book online at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.de.

From the Netherlands, you can also order the book at Bruna.com, Bol.com, Nai Booksellers and through our publisher: SUN Architecture.

Lecture at TU Delft

On Tuesday 29 November, Michiel opened a lecture series about China on Delft University of Technology with an introduction on China’s emerging megacities. The university published a stream showing the full lecture that you can watch online.

Go West in Shenzhen Biennale

The similarities between the Chinese city of Shenzhen and the Dutch Flevoland region with the city of Almere are stunning. Both areas started their urban development in the late 1970s: Shenzhen as a promising Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and Almere as promising New Town on Flevoland, the world’s largest man-made island. Both are located in a river delta, adjacent to major international metropolises: Shenzhen near Hong Kong and Flevoland next to Amsterdam. In spite of these similarities, both urban areas developed in a completely different manner.

In the 2011 Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, Go West Project puts into perspective the economic, social, spatial and ecological developments of Shenzhen and Flevoland. This forms the starting point of a research that shows the possibilities and opportunities of using the Shenzhen model in a European context…

Shanghai Urban Landscapes

Last week we reported on the different urban landscapes we encountered while traveling from Hong Kong to Wuhan. When taking the plane from Wuhan to Shanghai, you  experience more or less the same contrasts, while landing at Hongqiao Airport – a fragmented landscape of industry, golf courses, villas, high rises, empty lands and residential areas. Welcome to the City of Fragmentation.

7 November: lecture HKU, Shanghai

As part of the lecture series ‘Under the Skin’ we will present our book in the University of Hong Kong, Shanghai Study Centre on November 7.

In a lecture called Canary Wharf in Central China – The transformation of China’s New Megacities, we will discuss the way cities prepare for the transformation from industry-based economy to services based economy. To prepare for this change, cities in central and western China are all developing CBD’s (Central Business Districts).

In Wuhan we investigated how these CBD’s come into being and what are the processes and reasons behind its development. We describe the way urban development is used as a tool to attract foreign direct investment – the city as an economic powerhouse – and the struggle between cities to be as attractive as possible. Consultants like McKinsey play a key role in this development, as do planning departments of local governments.

As we describe in our book:

‘The strength of Chinese cities lies to a large degree in projecting of an image of success before anything has actually been achieved. You constantly feel yourself surrounded by the future, by virtual skylines or by completed buildings, ready for future use. Together, these form a futuristic and hope-inspiring décor.’

At the same time we show that this process is part of the transformation of Chinese cities into more or less generic cities – with architecture produced by firms like SOM, HOK and Gensler leading to skylines that are alike the world over.

‘The first designs of the large towers evoke the feeling you have seen them somewhere before, in another business district in a different large town, in Asia or somewhere else on the planet.’

Date: 7 November, 7.30pm
Venue: University of Hong Kong, Shanghai Study Centre,
Adress: No. 298 North Suzhou Road, 2nd Floor, Hongkou District
Entry: Free

Our book will be for sale after the lecture for 300 RMB; cash payment only.

Emigration and Evictions

Two seemingly unrelated articles about Chinese cities appeared in the papers last week. Yesterday, South China Morning Post wrote about the fact that more and more of China’s upper class want to leave the country. They plan to emigrate to improve the education conditions of their children, to flee the shady air and food quality and to secure their properties.

Last week, the New York Times reported about a landgrab in Beijing. A five year old gated community at the fringe of the city has to make way for a road widening project. Its inhabitants are told to leave their houses within three weeks. Although shocking, this is a quite regular practice in China. However, it mostly happens to farmers in the countryside, or to people like the protagonist of our book, Mr Sun. The people in Beijing who have to leave their houses are doctors, accountants, retired government officials.

That is obviously the reason for the increase in emigration plans of the upper middle class. The Beijing case shows nobody can rely on the rule of law in China – neither a retired official, or mr Sun. The consequence is that the people who can afford it – in a lot of cases the country’s most talented people -  leave China thus creating a serious brain drain.

Amsterdam meets PRD

This is an image of Google Earth of the city of Amsterdam from a height of 7km. It shows the inner city of the Dutch capital, its canal structure and its 19th century expansions surrounding it. Vice-mayor Maarten van Poelgeest is the man who is in charge of spatial planning in this well-structured city. Last week it was our task to introduce mr Van Poelgeest to the dynamic conditions of Chinese cities by making a study trip. We traveled through the Pearl River Delta, from Hong Kong to Wuhan where mr Van Poelgeest attended the ISOCARP Conference, together with the deputy director of the urban planning department, Zef Hemel, who delivered a key note speech. In the conference, Amsterdam won the Award of Excellence for their Structural Vision 2040.

Of course, these trips are about understanding cities, but also about comparing. Let’s make a cross section of the urban areas that we visited, also from a height of 7km.

We started off on Hong Kong island (above), one of the densest built places on earth. The Floor Area Ratio in the city reaches levels of 5 to 7. This is mainly because the city decided to keep 75% of its land green. In 10 minutes from Occupy Central to Occupy Beach!

At Hong Kong University we discussed the extreme condition of the Hong Kong / Shenzhen border (above), where the city of Hong Kong still maintains the buffer zone that after 60 years of being a no-go area turned into a sort of eco-enclave between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. In stark contrast, the city of Shenzhen expanded to the absolute edges, so the two political systems meet each other represented by nature (HK) and high rise (China).

In Shenzhen, the heart of the PRD with 13 million inhabitants, we visited – amongst others – the BYD headquarters. In 16 years this company turned from a start-up to a 170.000 employee mega-company with 9.9% of its shares hold by Warren Buffet. The company has its headquarters in an industrial area in the north east of the city (above) in an urban condition that HKU researcher Joshua Bolchover described to as a ‘scrambled egg’. On the campus, 20,000 BYD employees live and work together.

The high speed train connects Shenzhen and Guangzhou in roughly an hour. In Guangzhou, we took the subway to the Xiaoguwei University Island (above), a recently developed area of 20 square kilometer with 10 universities where 100,000 students and 100,000 university employees live, study and work together in futuristic condition. The island has 3,5 million square meter of indoor space and can finally accomodate 400,000 people. On the island, some urban villages remain, that provide all kind of low profile facilities to the students. On Saturday night the villages form lively neighborhoods with restaurants and night markets being packed.

Finally we ended our trip in the city of Wuhan, the capital of Wuhan that celebrates the 100th birthday of the nationalist revolution that ended the rule of the emperors. The city used the celebrations to spend 3 billion on urban development: a 1911 museum, a monument, infrastructure and other buildings. Two years ago, the city planners were fully focused on the development of the Wangjiadun Central Business District. However, the planners of the Wuhan Planning and Development Institute (WPDI) shifted their focus southwards, to the lake area in the district of Wuchang. ‘The CBD is not developing fast enough.’
In the east part of the city we finally visited a new development area where the urban and the rural clash: this is where Le Corbusier and Mr Sun are confronted with each other…

Book on show in Shanghai

After the exhibition in the Beijing International Book Fair in September, our book is now part of the Best Book Lounge exhibition in Shanghai. The exhibition shows a selection of Dutch books on art, architecture and design. The 120+ books on display show the oeuvre of renowned artists, designers and architects from the Netherlands, and present the best of Dutch book design. The exhibition is part of the Shanghai Creative Industry Week and takes place at Hong Fang (Red Town), 578 Huaihai Xi Lu, Shanghai, from 26/10 to 1/11.

Launching the book in Shanghai

Last Sunday, 16 October we launched our book in Shanghai’s Glamour Bar. After an introduction by the Consul General of the Netherlands, mr Peter Potman, we shared stories and ideas with an audience of over 100 people. Presenting the book in our hometown Shanghai was the last in a series of presentations in Europe and China. It was also quite an experience: could we tell an audience of both Chinese and foreigners living in China something they did not know yet? Judging on the reactions afterwards, we think we managed to give the audience some insight in our work, our ideas, our trips and our book.

Photography: Frans Schellekens

Shanghai Book launch in Glamour Bar

On Sunday 16 October, architect Daan Roggeveen and China correspondent Michiel Hulshof will present their new book How the City Moved to Mr Sun – China’s New Megacities. They will share their stories and pictures from developing Chinese megacities like Wuhan (10 million inhabitants), Shijiazhuang (9 million) and Chongqing (33 million), that are transforming at breakneck pace into the big brothers and sisters of global cities like Sao Paolo, London and Moscow. Here, China is constructing the biggest urban society the world has ever seen.

Venue : Glamour Bar
Address : 6/F, No.5 The Bund (corner of Guangdong Lu), Shanghai
Time : 4pm
Entry : RMB 75 (includes a drink), students RMB 20

Dancing with the stars!

Last week, our book got a review in two Dutch newspapers: Dagblad van het Noorden (PDF review) en de Volkskrant (page 1 and page 2). Both were very positive and rated our book with five stars!

We also got some reviews online, by Adam Mayer from Chengdu in his blog China Urban Development and by Dutch architecture blog Aureon