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Map Office
For Building Asia Brick by Brick Photo by Map Office
STATEMENT
LEGO CITY: Plan-it-Yourself ! is an integrated set of planning principles that responds to specific processes of urbanization in China. In this context, the LEGO brick corresponds to the process of globalization - from the container to the standardized production unit - plugged into the specifics of locality. Plan-it-Yourself! includes the most efficient systems of distribution and production yet accommodates archaic modes of urban planning. Without particular concern for spatial sequence or articulation, the politics of laissez-faire proves an effective strategy for colonization. Therefore, Plan-it-Yourself! transforms the landscape into a series of polynuclear construction systems, reinforcing the hybrid condition of the territory.
ABOUT MAP OFFICE
MAP Office is an open platform conceived by Laurent Gutierrez and Val¨Śrie Portefaix to reform our daily practices and to reconstruct our life-world. Based in Hong Kong since 1996, they epitomize a new breed of architects who are rethinking architecture's socio-political agency. Their projects involve critical analysis of spatial and temporal anomalies and documentation of the ways in which humans subvert and appropriate spaces for their own uses. Running counter to the local architectural circle, MAP Office's mission is to bring forward a set of fresh alternatives for a region preoccupied with "just-in-time" industrial production and efficiency.