People's Architecture
	BIO  |  QUOTE     MA QINGYUN / MADA S.P.A.M. Qingyun Ma Today I would like to focus on the people's side because I think the modern desire to search for models doesn't really apply to Chinese urbanism. It would help nothing to understand Shanghai. It is the people that use the city, who utilize and live in the city that makes the city different from other cities. I always imagine moving Londoners away and kind of smuggle the Chinese population into London. After five years London will be totally a Chinese city. Chinese people use the city in such a way that it doesn't really generate any waste. All the places, all the corners will be occupied. Ma Qingyun, Berlage Institute, Rotterdam, April 4, 2005 Look back last ten years, the real inventive people are the business people, they are really inventive. They generate so much wealth, so much energy, so much potential, to look into new potentials of maximize the hidden values of the world. So if you think business than you can cross ideas, cross branding, cross breeding, really connecting, that is what practice world hates to do, because they are not courageous to do it. Ma Qingyun, interview with Peoples Architecture, Rotterdam, April 5, 2005 Aside form a traditional definition of design, firstly one has to explore a problem, even invent a problem. That is what design is really about, because sometimes you cannot find the true essence of the problem so you always feel there is a miss fitting in the way you approach this. If you feel very uncomfortable, as a designer you know when that moment comes, you should not force the solution because it means you didn't find the problem yet. So you start to invent problems and sometimes a newly invented problem can override the problem that is hidden. The task to invent and re-invent a problem is really fundamental to a design process. Ma Qingyun, interview with Peoples Architecture, Rotterdam, April 5, 2005