PEOPLE'S NEWSLETTER ARCHIVE

And now for those who cannot get enough of our semi-monthly newsletter, we are pleased to announce our People’s Architecture Newsletter Archive, hosted forever on our servers for your nonstop viewing enjoyment!

 
BUILDING ASIA BRICK BY BRICK
2007 SHENZHEN & HONG KONG BI-CITY BIENNALE OF URBANISM | ARCHITECTURE
CITY OF EXPIRATION AND REGENERATION - "CoER"
NORTHERN PARK OF OCT-LOFT | NANSHAN DISTRICT | SHENZHEN
DECEMBER 8, 2007 - MARCH 9, 2008

people’s architecture and ArtAsiaPacific will present Building Asia Brick by Brick at the 2007 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism | Architecture.
 
During the Shenzhen Biennale, "Building Asia Brick by Brick | Teach Through Play" will invite Shenzhen youngsters and architects to first build an oversized Map of China. The subsequent construction of cities on this map is based on the French salon game of “Rotating Corpse,” where a group of players collectively assemble a story or image. Here, each collaborator adds to the composition without being allowed to see the previous contribution. Each team of architects and children will contribute a section to an imaginary city that represents both diverse aesthetic sensibilities and principals of community. The final product is both a vision of China and the act of modeling the inter-generational teamwork necessary to create tomorrow's community.  

For more information, please see our video >>
 

 
SYMPOSIUM | EXPORTING CHINA
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY | NEW YORK CITY
FEBRUARY 16, 2008

For the past two decades China's economic growth has created seemingly endless opportunities for international architects to impose their vision on China's built environment. What has yet to be fully experienced is the reciprocating effect of Chinese contemporary culture on the spatial production worldwide. EXPORTING CHINA will discuss the future potential of exporting China's contemporary culture. More info >>

Participants include:

YUNG HO CHANG : Principal Architect, Atelier Feichang Jianzhu, Professor and Head, Architecture Department, MIT Professor and Founding Head, Graduate Center of Architecture, Peking University

QINGYUN MA : Dean of the USC School of Architecture and holder of the Della and Harry MacDonald Dean’s Chair in Architecture, Principal Architect, MADA s.p.a.m. (strategy, planning, architecture, media), Shanghai, China

ACKBAR ABBAS : Professor, Comparative Literature, UC Irvine

DOREEN HENG LIU : Principal and Founding Architect, NODE Architecture, Guangzhou and Hong Kong
 

 
EVERYONE LOVES CCTV

Reporting on the OMA designed China Central Television headquarters building in Beijing, Arup presents an easily digestible diagram of CCTV’s major construction process. USA Today profiles the tower, compares it to the Pentagon, and paints a portrait of the backstage accolades and dissentions from Chinese and Europeans- at whatever role their involvement lies.

 
EVERYONE LOVES THE WFC, TOO

To segue from the article above, Shanghaiist brings us the tale of several urban adventurists who scaled the Kohn Pederson Fox-designed and still-under-construction Shanghai World Financial Center to bring us amazing photos of Shanghai views, tower construction, and their crazy selves.

 
INTERVIEW WITH QINGYUN MA

Ali Jeevanjee, via Archinect, interviews Qingyun Ma in three parts. From the author: “In Part 1 we focus on his practice, and his observations from operating first in the East and now in the West. In Part 2 we discuss the future of the urban condition, both in China and in Los Angeles. In Part 3, Ma addresses architectural education, how architects need to recalibrate their role in society, and his vision for USC.”

 
CHINA'S EMERGING STREETSCAPE

China Digital Times, via MSNBC, features a video clip profiling China’s overcrowding streets due to the exponential growth in auto ownership and the government practices going into effect in order to mediate this condition. Outside of the infrastructural analysis, the Washington Post features an article describing an emerging shift as more urban Chinese adopt car culture with a sense of increased mobility and connectedness. 

BANNING THE BAG

In a bold move that trumps the efforts of other nations, China’s State Council declared a ban on the distribution of free plastic bags in their entirety beginning June 1 of this year, and a separate halt on the production of ultra-thin bags beginning immediately. Joining a handful of other nations including Ireland and Uganda, the proposal quickly resonated in Australia, who is now looking to phase out plastic bags by close of this year. Aside from the increases in greenhouse gas production, the production of plastic bags in China accounts for the usage of 37 million barrels of oil a year- more than any other country. And as consumption rises throughout the country, the measure should help alleviate the generation of accompanying trash. Shanghaiist provides a video clip from Al-Jazeera, and Treehugger provides an in-depth report.

CHINESE POLLUTION DISCHARGE

Compliments of Google Earth, China Digital Times features a slideshow of water pollution from several different Chinese cities.

THREE GORGES THUMBS-DOWN

Engineering News-Record highlights the growing criticism of the Three Gorges Dam, highlighting the comments of Chinese officials, journalists, and the peoples that have been displaced numerous times as the land around the Yangzte River becomes increasingly unstable. The US 22 billion dollar dam, scheduled to be complete in 2009, is the world’s biggest hydroelectric project and was intended to eliminate flooding along the Yangzte and provide 84.7 billion kilowatts of energy per year- a cleaner alternative to coal. However as the reservoir fills behind the dam, experts are seeing more alarming issues crop up as landslides and tremors become more commonplace, people’s settlements are undermined prompting further migration, and toxic algae begins to bloom and taint water supplies due to the accumulation of industrial run-off.

 
BEIJING WC

On the lighter side of things, Danwei features an essay by Eric Mu with illustration by Beijing-based graphic designer Su Wei illuminating the Beijing public toilet experience.

BLOGGING BEIJING

The Seattle Times features the blog of Daniel Beekman- a Fulbright researcher and Seattle Times reporter currently in Beijing to observe the pre-Olympics condition. BLOGGING BEIJING features posts on the soon-to-be curtailed knock-off market, “parachuting” foreign journalists and their reporting tactics, and an insightful interview with Dr. Susan Brownell- an American anthropologist and researcher of sports in China- on the effects of the Olympics on Beijing.