Embedded architecture

From Daan’s Diary:

Mondaymorning. I am having a cup of coffee and am reading a bit in my just acquired copy (!) of SMLXL. In the essay ‘Bigness’ I read: ‘Beyond a certain critical mass, a building becomes a Big Building.’

The phone rings. It is my friend S. ‘Hey Daan, we are going to do a 131,000 square meter project in Taiyuan. The program is mall, office, hotel. Can you join our team and meet the client?’ I discuss the idea with Michiel. Taiyuan is one of the Go West cities. It is a perfect opportunity to be part of the architectural process in one of the cities: embedded architecture.

Tuesdaymorning 10.40am my plane lands in Taiyuan. Our local partner, an LDI awaits us at the airport. They take us to the site, where we meet the client. The client is a local coal mine owner, who wears a blue suit and a Rolex. When I ask him what kind of building he has in mind he says: ‘Number 1 international!’ So far our architectural debate.

One week later, the client wants to see where the project is heading. We submit some schemes. The LDI has presented them already. We are waiting for reply…

To be continued

The other Huaxi Project

Guiyang received architectural world fame last year with the Huaxi project, a masterplan made by Beijing MAD Architects. In this masterplan, 11 young architecture offices were invited to contribute. The result is a bouquet of contemporary architectural forms. The project is widely published, widely discussed and widely criticized. And not yet build.

Last week, we were taken to Huaxi by Wei Haobo, director of Westline Studio in Guiyang. He showed us his project “Dream Stream”, consisting of 4 different buildings in the hills of Guiyang. Each building has a - especially for Chinese means - radical building typology. And most of all: they succeeded in building these proposals! Take a look:

The Bamboo Tree House is a structure with different dwellings lying on the hill. The houses are connected by staircases. The shape refers to the informal architecture of the farmer villages. Wei was also inspired by the village architecture in the South of Spain, he told us. The facade was meant to be filled in with local stones. However, the developer decided to make a cheaper solution by filling the structure in with tiles…

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MAD architects: urban forest

MAD Architects, Beijing recently revealed their plan for the so called ‘Urban Forest’ scheme in the city of Chongqing. Read more on this designboom post: MAD architects: urban forest.

Li Xiangning: About Contemporary Chinese Architecture

Opinion article written by Dr.Li Xiangning, Lecturer at College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University Source: www.chinese-architecture.com

“A cat is good if it catches mice no matter it is black or white.” The saying was cited by DENG Xiaoping,China’s former leader,to push his pragmatic approach. The same can be said about Chinese architects’s practice. They have developed an expedient tactic, which is not a compromise with the greedy market,but a wise balance between the ultimate architectural ideal and social reality in China. It is based on a full understanding of our powerfulness and weakness. Read the rest of this entry »