Article/Paper RESEARCH ON AND IMPLEMENTATION OF THE METHOD TO INTEGRATE URBAN PLANNING INFORMATION RESOURCES By: Qiu Suwen Source: Beijing Academy of Urban Planning and Design In recent years, with the development of science and technology, the work means of China's urban planning departments have changed fundamentally: the planning and management departments of many cities have set up the correspondent office system for urban planning and network release system by adopting the GIS (Geographic Information System) Technology; and the urban planning and design departments have discarded the drawing board and realized in an all-round way electronic drafting and designing. [FULL VERSION]

DYNAMIC CITY FOUNDATION By: Neville Mars Source: 3x3 A Perspective on China, Part One We are the Dynamic City Foundation, based in Beijing but founded in Holland. As a Dutch architect I was fascinated by the statement made by the Chinese minister of Civil Affairs Doje Cering who in 2001 formulated the goal to build 400 new cities by the year 2020, for about 400 million people. This seemed to me such a daunting number, that I immediately wanted to research what it meant. Working already in Asia at that point I understood this statement to be a political statement, more than anything else; a number game. Three years later, and doing this project, that is clear, but as I hope to show in this presentation, this goal is still very valid. [FULL VERSION]

FUTURE | FAST | FORWARD By: Urbanus Architecture and Design Source: 3x3 A Perspective on China, Part One China's high-speed urbanization always gives an illusion. Especially to the Western participants who are really enthusiastic about Chinese projects. When involved in the construction today, we are building the future of tomorrow. What kind of future can we, as architects, envision for a population that grows faster than its cities? [FULL VERSION]

THE PERI-URBAN: THE UNFOLDING DRAMA OF CHINA'S CITY-REGIONS By: John Friedmann Source: 3x3 A Perspective on China, Part Six There are many sites where China's urbanization processes can be observed, and at each site, we will discover a new story. These stories are difficult to weave together, but if we should succeed in doing so, we would witness a drama of epic proportions, the transformation of once rural China into the urban colossus in the making that it is today. [FULL VERSION]

PATRONAGE IN CHINA By: Andrew Yang Source: Asia Dialogue, Part One I started writing about architecture in 2001, shortly after having graduated from the University of Chicago. In that same year, Beijing was awarded the Olympics and in the years after, a tremendous amount of architectural work was coming out of the country. At the time, there was a sheer transmission of images, which was really quite overwhelming. I made this collage and looking through all of these images most of these projects still exist as renderings because they are still in the main stages of planning. So with all this work it kind of begs the question. Why is China such a good place for architecture? [FULL VERSION]

ASIA DIALOGUE By: Li, Xiaodong Source: Asia Dialogue, Part Two There are two reasons why I should not call myself an architect, first because most of the time I teach at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University and second because so far I haven't make any money from my designs. The largest part of my designs are not realized and for those realized, or the ones in the process of being realized, I fund them my own way. But before talking about the architectural design, I would like to give a brief overview of the history of the architectural developments in China during the last twenty years. [FULL VERSION]

BLURRING BORDERS By: Clifford Pearson Source: Asia Dialogue, Part One I want to start this lecture with the image of a swimmer in a pool. I think what's happening today in China, the United States and the world in general is a blurring of borders, a blurring of disciplines and a blurring of opportunities. And, just like being in the water, this condition creates all sorts of chances and dangers. When you're in the water, you can sink or swim. [FULL VERSION]

CHINA: NEW ARCHITECTURES OF SCALE By: Daniela Fabricius Source: Asia Dialogue, Part One In recent years, American and European architects have collectively scrambled to be part of the so-called "China phenomenon". While the economic world had been observing the changes in China for quite some time, architects began taking note sometime around 2002, with the planning of the Beijing Olympics. The next major sign of things to come was Koolhaas' CCTV building, which is perhaps the most vulgar, but also the most bold attempt to give representation to the superimposition of market and State-party powers. For architects and developers, it started a bad epidemic of building envy. What has followed is a blind scramble for projects in China, one that is nothing less than a gold rush, fueled by the promise of cash, lax regulations, willing clients, and the blind impetus to BUILD. And with that scramble came the anxieties of the instability and confusion of the situation in China, superseded perhaps only by the even greater anxiety of being left behind. [FULL VERSION]

PIXEL: WISH SPACE AND OTHER MINUTE AREA OF ILLUMINATION By: Map Office Source: Engaging the City We (Laurent Gutierrez and Valerie Portefaix) are both architects, although the only thing we don't do is building. We are doing a lot of research which we communicate via writing and publications. We also teach, Laurent is leading the environmental discipline at the School of Design, Hong Kong Polytechnic University. We are doing a lot of exhibitions, which are both shortcuts for our projects, and ways to show our projects outside the architectural context. So we switch from the architectural practice to the art field, the latter being more flexible and welcoming in developing our projects. [FULL VERSION]

SAN YUAN LI DOCUMENTARY By: Ou Ning and Cao Fei Source: 3x3 A Perspective on China, Part Four San Yuan Li is a case study of a typical village-amid-the-city phenomenon in the process of the urbanization of Guangzhou. The crew penetrates San Yuan Li Village as City Flaneur rethinking back into the depth of its history, the confrontation and reconciliation between the process of modernization, and the patriarchal clan system, as well as the rural community system in Guangdong. The bizarre architectures and views of humanity have been captured into this black and white cine-poem. The documentary was commissioned by the Z.O.U. (Zone of Urgency), 50th Venice Biennale (2003). [FULL VERSION]

URBANISM OF VICTIMS By: Yushi Uehara Source: 3x3 A Perspective on China, Part Two We have been to the Pearl River Delta area because the village within city was born there. The Pearl River Delta Area is in the southern part of China and the region competes with the economical vitality of Shanghai and of Beijing. The difference is that the Pearl River Delta is a network region; one city alone is not comparable to Shanghai or Beijing. But when it works as a network states the area can produce almost all scales of products. This put them in a very formidable situation. Facing Hong Kong and Macao is naturally a tremendous gift. [FULL VERSION]

INFORMAL TERRITORY By: Jiang Jun Source: Documenta 12 Urban China is a magazine on the intertwining relationship between formal and informal, top-down control and bottom up out-of-control in the contemporary Chinese context. In the previous issues as well as the derivatives, the topic has been consistently involved in different perspectives. In the forum "Informal Territory" in Kassel, Urban China is going to present the following topics... [FULL VERSION]