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The work of the Dynamic City Foundation mainly revolves around presenting utopian models, as it were models that are cut-free from any real difficult political context but present ideal design solutions, sometimes so ideal that you don't want them to be built. This is the dream we feel is very necessary in a country that is so fast, that doesn't take time to think forward, and doesn't take time to think about the future. The thought model developed is based on market-driven organic developments, or MOD, where we suggest that even tough all this is clearly planned, as China is in essence a planned economy, it combines very well marketed proposals, the stepping stone projects for cities like Beijing, we can see that projects for the Olympic Games, the old city center etcetera are all the key-aspects of the new cities of China. All this together suggests a very clearly planned vision but in reality is completely organic. For this project we cut from the center to the suburbs of Beijing and showed that with passing of the each highway a completely different typology in comparison with the then current political situation can be seen. The path goes from pre-communist in the center over straight simple south facing communist to socialist market conditions or transitions. As you can see pre-communist model everything was integrated; you could walk and find your work, food and recreation and friends within a stone throw away. Slowly the scale starts increasing and the processes start moving apart to the point we find ourselves today in a situation where the architectural scale is equal to the urban scale. This is important because it defines the way China is being built, not by urban planners but basically by megalomaniac architects I think one of the few reasons for foreign architects in China is to really introduce topics of sustainability. The architecture we have used, in this case we have readapted the courtyard house in Beijing and tried to form a stacked version of the traditional Beijing courtyard. Similar projects for Beijing, only at the mega-scale is the BBT, the Beijing Boom Tower, which tries to analyze and provide a design solution against segregation, against stratification, against fortification, this is clearly an utopian project, even though as I will show in my last many of our Chinese audience don't seem to realize it is, and once asked when is going to be built and when they can move in and finally they simply copy it. Neville Mars, 3X3#1 FUTURE | FAST | FORWARD, New York, April 17, 2006 [DOWNLOAD FULL VERSION] |
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