Journal of Chinese Architecture and Urbanism

Constructing geographical and architectural imaginations: The China-aided assembly buildings in Africa, 1960s – 1970s

Guanghui Ding — Thu, 30 Mar 2023 14:55:43 +0800

China’s exports of architectural designs to numerous countries in Asia and Africa during the Mao era generated significant tensions regarding the necessary geographical knowledge. As many of these countries are situated in tropical regions, understanding and responding to the unique hot, humid or dry climate conditions was crucial for successful transnational architectural production. This article situates the practical knowledge generation process within a complex process of political, institutional, individual, and intellectual interactions, examining the role of Chinese architects and technocrats in constructing geographical and architectural imaginations for China-aided projects built in Africa. Specifically, in this article, two case studies of assembly buildings erected in Guinea (1967) and Sudan (1976) are presented to demonstrate Chinese efforts to address the climatic, cultural, and practical requirements of architectural aid. Through political negotiation, personal observation, onsite visits, media publication, and scholarly exchange, Chinese professionals constructed geographical and architectural imaginations in Africa, creating modernist architecture that retained a particular sense of place and time, thereby reflecting continuity and transformation of their domestic work. These subjective imaginations were shaped by the combination of economic rationality and technical expertise, manifested in the selection of appropriate site, climate responsive designs, materials, technologies, cultural articulations, and economic considerations. The aided buildings, as embodiment of the Chinese professionals’ geographical and architectural imaginations not only displayed a critical process of knowledge production situated within the physical, material world in the tropics, but also served as China’s political engagement with Guinea and Sudan that aimed to interrogate existing structure of international order.

The Extraordinary Life and Work of Arata Isozaki (1931–2022): Seven Decades of Visionary Architecture

Steffen Lehmann — Wed, 19 Apr 2023 17:30:14 +0800

In December 2022, the Pritzker Prize-winning Japanese architect, Arata Isozaki, passed away at his home in Okinawa, aged 91. Known as a theorist as well as a practitioner, Isozaki leaves behind a seven-decade career in architecture, with more than 300 designs and 100 built structures on five continents. This article analyzes the extraordinary life and work of the Japanese grandmaster and presents a portrait of his innovative urban design concepts and buildings. Despite its diversity, the author suggests that his oeuvre can be categorized into four distinctly different phases, exemplifying how Isozaki constantly reinvented and challenged himself. Isozaki combined Eastern and Western philosophies like no other architect before him and had a significant influence on Chinese architecture. He also practiced in China, where he had an office in Shanghai (since 2000) and realized a series of important buildings, including the Shenzhen Cultural Center and Library, the Museum of the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and the Shanghai Symphony Hall. The author is a former collaborator and project partner of Isozaki during the 1990s, and draws from close knowledge, first-hand observations, and conversations to comment the most relevant projects and adds background information. Isozaki’s work was concerned with formal and intellectual expressions; it is complex and highly personal in its interdisciplinary approach and absorption of a wide range of influences. For Isozaki, architecture was predominantly a cultural practice. Given that Isozaki has recently passed away and his oeuvre is now closed, the changed circumstances ask for a renewed focus and deeper interpretation of his remarkable, unusual legacy. He created original ideas, formal innovations, and versatile concepts for spaces that defy characterization as belonging to any single tendency or school of thought.

Microbial technologies: Toward a regenerative architecture

Rachel Armstrong — Thu, 20 Apr 2023 13:32:48 +0800

This paper examines the applications of microbial technologies in regenerative architecture, which enliven the built environment and its territories by establishing a different relationship between waste, energy, human inhabitation, and microbial “life.” The specific platform discussed is centered on the microbial fuel cell (an ecologically “just” platform that provides bioelectrical energy, data, and chemical transformation from human waste streams), which are exemplified by a range of demonstrators that establish transactional systems between humans and microbes. These simultaneously “sustainable” and “smart” demonstrators establish operational principles for the wider deployment and uptake of microbial technologies in an urban context. The city-scale implementations of these regenerative systems have the potential to establish the foundations for “living cities,” which are fundamentally bioremediating, resulting in an overall increase in liveliness of our habitats and living spaces.

Strategies for the dynamic protection and utilization of traditional villages in rapidly urbanizing areas: The case of Jiangbian Village in Dongguan City of China

Cheng Wei, Yue He, Yuanxing Liu — Fri, 05 May 2023 14:01:30 +0800

In recent years, along with continuous urbanization, traditional villages in rapidly urbanizing areas have encountered difficulties like “constructive destruction,” “material decay,” imbalance of the natural environment, and loss of historical culture due to modernization. Under the requirement of “comprehensively strengthening the protection and utilization of historical and cultural heritage and coordinating the protection of historical and cultural heritage with urban and rural construction, economic development, and tourism development” in the new era, it is crucial to study the protection and development of historical and cultural heritage. Since traditional villages are a living heritage, their sustainable development while respecting history is indispensable. Coordinating the relationship between heritage conservation and socioeconomic development to achieve sustainable development is currently the biggest challenge for traditional village conservation. Taking Jiangbian village as an example, based on the cultural heritage value of the village, this paper combines the traditional village with the general direction of urban development and proposes strategies of cross-regional development, linkage, and integration of surrounding resources, complementing the shortcomings of public facilities, and utilizing unused resources, so that Jiangbian Village can be actively integrated into the development of the city, the synergistic development of the village and the city can be promoted, and the dynamic protection and utilization of traditional villages can be realized, with the goal of enriching the research on the dynamic protection and utilization of traditional villages in rapidly urbanizing areas.

Exploring the appropriate technology for green renovation of rural buildings incorporating regional culture: Taking the renovation of village houses in Conghua, Nanping, Guangzhou as an example

Ying Bai, Xiaoxiang Tang, Shuchen Xu — Fri, 05 May 2023 14:28:49 +0800

In view of the rising energy consumption of rural buildings in recent years and the neglect of the connection with regional architectural culture in the construction process, this study explains the connotation and representation of regional culture based on the theoretical tool of cultural regional character, and constructs a suitable technical system for green transformation of rural buildings incorporating regional culture from five aspects, which are regional character creation, outdoor environment improvement, envelope structure performance optimization, indoor environment quality improvement, and renewable energy utilization. Based on the construction of this system, this study takes the renovation of the village residence in Nanping, Conghua, Guangzhou as an example, and explores the ways to achieve green and sustainable development in the renovation of rural buildings in the Lingnan Guangfu area with the guidance of the system and method of integrating regional culture and modern green building technology. The study compares the buildings of Nanping village residence in Conghua, Guangzhou, before and after the renovation, and finds that after the renovation, the building consumes less energy, the spatial quality is improved, and the overall spatial and stylistic expression is more in line with the regional cultural characteristics, which provides theoretical and practical references for the green renovation of rural buildings.