100% DESIGN SHANGHAI COMPETITION
COMING IN 2009!

people's architecture is pleased to announce 100% DESIGN SHANGHAI COMPETITION- a collaboration between people's architecture and the creative directors of this year's 100% DESIGN SHANGHAI.100% DESIGN SHANGHAI COMPETITION will be a competition and exhibition coinciding with next years 100% DESIGN SHANGHAI. More info to follow as it develops >>
 

 
100% DESIGN SHANGHAI
JUNE 26 THROUGH 28, 2008
SHANGHAI EXHIBITION CENTER
SHANGHAI | CHINA 

In recent years, Shanghai has emerged as one of the most vibrant and compelling metropolitan centers in the world. The largest city in China, Shanghai is now the first stop for any international company seeking to have a foothold in the Chinese market. With the most diverse, international mix of commercial and creative professionals in China, the city will inevitably become the freshest, and commercially vibrant, new destination on the global design circuit.

100% Design Shanghai 2008 offers Chinese and international suppliers of contemporary interior design products the opportunity to find buyers and retail partners; a platform for designers and architects to source the latest design pieces; and an avenue for young, up-and-coming talent to be introduced to members of the design press. More info >>

FEATURED KEYNOTE TALK BY RICHARD HUTTON AND MICHAEL YOUNG
JUNE 28, 2 PM

Richard Hutten graduated from the Academy Industrial Design Eindhoven in 1991. That same year he started his own design studio, working on a variety of projects such as: furniture, product, interior and exhibition design. He developed his 'No sign of design' and 'Table upon table' concepts. He is one of the most internationally successful Dutch designers and a key exponent of Droog Design, in which he has been involved since it’s inception in 1993. Current projects include objects and furniture for MUJI Japan, Lensvelt office furniture, Offi, Christophle Paris, a house for Ytong, the interior of a building of MVRDV architects in Amsterdam and the interior of the Museum Boijmans van Beuningen in Rotterdam.

Michael Young has been amongst the most successful and influential designers of his generation from the outset of his career. In 1995 he created MY- 022 Ltd design office in London where he focused on a series of projects for Cappellini, Sawaya & Moroni and Magis and was given his own monthly page in Japanese publication Casa Brutus. His clients since have included Galley Kreo, Danese, Artemide, Rosenthal and Swedese and Astro bar, a nighclub design in Iceland. Michael currently serves as the creative director of 100% Design Tokyo.

INTRODUCTION: Hans Lensvelt, co-founder of Moooi, head of Gispen/Lensvelt

SYNTHETIC TIMES - MEDIA ART CHINA 2008
JUNE 10 THROUGH JULY 3, 2008
NATIONAL ART MUSEUM OF CHINA [NAMOC]
BEIJING | CHINA

During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the National Art Museum of China will present SYNTHETIC TIMES – MEDIA ART CHINA 2008 in its current location at the center of Beijing. NAMOC is the only national art museum in China that is dedicated to research, presentation and promotion of modern and contemporary arts. SYNTHETIC TIMES – MEDIA ART CHINA 2008 , scheduled from June 10th to July 3rd, will be one of the most important cultural events leading up to the Olympic Games in Beijing.

SYNTHETIC TIMES – MEDIA ART CHINA 2008  will showcase both established and emerging artists from approximately thirty countries, and over forty media art installation works will be on view along with performances, workshops, presentations and discussion panels. To complement the theme exhibitions, The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) will contribute a special screening program consisting of seminal video art works. Ars Electronica is set to present the award winning Animation Festival while European Media Art Festival will bring in an edition of International Emerging Video Art. The Exhibition is envisaged as a landmark event in the history of contemporary Chinese art dedicated to embracing the most innovative artistic production and theorization to date, and aspiring to foster and advance new modes of thinking and novel ways of artistic engagement in an increasingly technologically immersed society and global cultural landscape, resonating with the leitmotifs of “Cultural Olympics” and “Hi-Tech Olympics” put forward by the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. More info >>
 

 
CAO FEI | RMB CITY
OPENING JULY 26, 2008
SERPENTINE GALLERY
KENSINGTON GARDENS | LONDON

Beijing-based artist Cao Fei is creating RMB City, an online art community in the virtual world of Second Life. Institutions and collectors are invited to buy buildings in RMB City and program events and activities in them. The project is an experiment exploring the creative relationship between real and virtual space, and is a reflection of China’s urban and cultural explosion.

The Serpentine Gallery commissioned Cao Fei to develop this project, and it will be presented via the Serpentine website and in the Gallery’s lobby for one year. More info can be found at the Serpentine Gallery website, and on the China Tracy blog >>
 

SHANGHAI KALEIDOSCOPE
THROUGH NOVEMBER 8, 2008
ROYAL ONTARIO MUSEUM
TORONTO | ONTARIO

This unprecedented view of one of the world’s most dynamic cities examines Shanghai as a laboratory for 21st-century urban creation. Leading artists, architects and fashion designers provide an insider's view of the high-speed, high-density, high-rise culture that is rapidly emerging in China's largest city.

What started out as a bustling seaport known for its corruption, casinos and opium trade has quickly become one of the world’s most forward-thinking cities. From the Bund to Pudong, Shanghai has transformed itself into a leading destination. Business peoples, designers, investors and tourists collide in what is a remarkable cultural and urban whirl.

SHANGHAI KALEIDOSCOPE presents four key aspects of the city's vibrant culture: architecture, urban design, contemporary art, and fashion. The exhibition will bring together an adventurous mix of architectural models and digital simulations; designer fashion apparel, drawings and runway videos; and paintings, photo-works and video installations by the city's leading contemporary artists. More info >>

USC AMERICAN ACADEMY IN CHINA
JUNE 29 THROUGH JULY 26, 2008
SHANGHAI | CHINA

For centuries, Western critics and scholars have kept their eyes on the East, but China's ever-increasing scale of urbanism and size of economy has focused the world's lenses on China. This summer's Beijing Olympics and the World Expo in Shanghai are mere precursors of the inevitable impact of Chinese urbanization. This summer, the University of Southern California (USC) American Academy in China (AAC) will explore the country's potential to produce a new urban paradigm. Participants will discover if China's local conditions have the power to translate globally. As a model, AAC is launching a summer program, inviting graduate and undergraduate programs from around the world to join the University of Southern California on a four-week investigation of architecture and urbanism against a rich array of cultural and historical contexts between four distinctly different cities in mainland China: Shanghai, Beijing, Xi'an, and Lijiang. More info >>
 

 
FUKSAS WINS SHENZHEN AIRPORT COMPETITION

In this article in Architectural Record, the Shenzhen Airport Authority has announced that it has selected Rome-based Fuksas Architects to design the new Terminal 3 at Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport. Narrowly beating out a proposal by Reiser + Umemoto under complicated jury deliberations, the Fuksas scheme employs a meshlike skin incised by various size apertures, bringing in daylight and reducing the need for electric lighting. A double-skin envelope is also employed to hide mechanical systems and help modulate temperature fluctuations and reduce energy usage. The Fuksas' expansion will make Shenzhen airport the fourth-largest in China, and with the first phase of construction complete in 2015, the 4.3 million square foot terminal is expected to handle 40 million passengers a year.

 
THE NEW, NEW CITY

Architecture critic for the New York Times Nicolai Ourousoff takes an in-depth look at how instant cities like Shenzhen and Dubai are revamping the landscape of urban discourse. A snippet from the article:

In both China and the Persian Gulf, cities comparable in size to New York have sprouted up almost overnight. Only 30 years ago, Shenzhen was a small fishing village of a few thousand people, and Dubai had merely a quarter million people. Today Shenzhen has a population of eight million, and Dubai’s glittering towers, rising out of the desert in disorderly rows, have become playgrounds for wealthy expatriates from Riyadh and Moscow. Long-established cities like Beijing and Guangzhou have more than doubled in size in a few decades, their original outlines swallowed by rings of new development. Built at phenomenal speeds, these generic or instant cities, as they have been called, have no recognizable center, no single identity. It is sometimes hard to think of them as cities at all. Dubai, which lays claim to some of the world’s most expensive private islands, the tallest building and soon the largest theme park, has been derided as an urban tomb where the rich live walled off from the poor migrant workers who serve them. Shenzhen is often criticized as a product of unregulated development, better suited to the speculators that first spurred its growth than to the workers housed in huge complexes of factory-run barracks. Yet for architects these cities have also become vast fields of urban experimentation, on a scale that not even the early Modernists, who first envisioned the city as a field of gleaming towers, could have dreamed of.
 

WORLD'S MOST INCREDIBLE BIG AND GREEN LED WALL

It's awesomeness arriving just in time for the Olympics, the GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall will form the curtain wall of the Xicui Entertainment Complex in Beijing. Designed by New York architect Simone Giostra in collaboration with China's solar energy giant Suntech, the LED wall will harvest solar energy during the day and use it to illuminate the screen after dark. The display is comprised of 2,292 color RGB LED light points, and will keep to a low-resolution format perfect for abstract visuals. A specially commissioned program of video installations and live performances will play over the screen, highlighting the work of Xu Wenkai, Michael Bell Smith, Takeshi Murata, Shih Chieh Huang, Feng Mengbo, and Varvara Shavrova. Of note, the media wall could prove to be a sustainable model in a country where outdoor visuals are huge and common.

 
BAMBOO HOMES HEADING TO CHINA'S QUAKE ZONE

In the wake of the recent earthquake disaster as survivors take shelter in tarp tents, a Beijing-based NGO is advocating bamboo shelters as a locally-sourced, quake-resistant housing soluation. The International Network for Bamboo and Rattan [INBAR] has been investigating bamboo construction technologies since its formation in 1997, and technological advances in the past 2 to 3 years have brought bamboo construction techniques closer to reality. While not highly regarded and often dismissed by the Chinese construction industry in favor of steel and concrete, bamboo has the track record and the support of reknowned engineering firm Arup and other Chinese building experts for building in seismic zones. INBAR has, as of last week, received its first grant of USD $150,000 to build at least 50 bamboo houses in the quake-striken zone as both emergency shelters and long-term housing units.
 

 
GRAFFITI SHANGHAI

Courtesy of Danwei TV, Episode 4 of THE SHANGHAI BEAT features interviews with three of Shanghai's best known graffiti artists to gain insight into their perspectives on the local scene and their work. And for more viewing enjoyment, an earlier post on Shanghaiist brings us a slideshow of notable images along Moganshan Lu.