Archinect - China Builds

European students interview Koolhaas: "learn Chinese and go study there!"

2014-02-12T02:45:00-05:00

Just came across a very sincere and open interview with Rem, hosted by the University of Amsterdam, conducted by two students from the faculty of business and economics two years ago, in which he specifically talks about the relevance of China and the importance to engage with it personally:

"From our research for the European Union (...) [we found that] there is an outrageous lack of curiosity and outrageous lack of vision in young, individual europeans. (..) in order to know how to live an interesting live and to prepare for a serious future, one should not just go to China but learn Chinese and study there! Engage."

(from 49min 30seconds onwards)

Good choice.

In addition he describes his experiences with Tsinghua University in Beijing, the host of this 'China Builds blog' where he proposed to present and comment on his provoking CCTV building design after it won the competition, but was heavily criticized by popular opinion.
Within the university (he describes) young and old scholar...

Towards 2050: Developing a Sino-Dutch Approach to Sustainable Urbanization

2013-12-16T13:14:00-05:00

Ton Venhoeven, the second speaker in the School of Architecture’s lecture series, spoke to us recently about the Sino-Dutch approach to smart cities.

Over the past 40 years urban planning has evolved to focus on sustainable development and reacting to environmental disasters. Although the definition of smart cities is widely debated, the Dutch approach focuses on a few specific goals.

First, smart cities need to integrate a circular economy where better flow management eliminates waste through features like zero-energy houses, smart cars, and waste recycling systems.

Second, there should be an integration of centralized and decentralized production where buildings generate their own energy, for example. Venhoeven also emphasized the need for clean, integrated transportation where bike shares are linked with subway and light rail lines.

All of these components work to create polycentric, rather than unipolar, cities. Ideally, each pole of the smart city will produc...

Phoenix International Media Centre- EPMA Visit

2013-12-14T06:50:00-05:00

A group of our students joined in with architecture students from other universities in Beijing, to visit the Phoenix International Media Center. This building, designed by the Beijing Institute for Architecture Design (BIAD), with Shao Weiping as the leading architect, is housing China's biggest private broadcasting company, and is due for completion later this year. We were shown around by Danni Wang, architect at the BIAD on November 6, 2013. The project is the first locally design-built parametric project by Chinese architects and engineers. With the integration of BIM and parametric design processes in the work flow, the project represents an up-to-date approach to design and building, burgeoning in the industry.

The Phoenix International Media Centre emerges from the southwest corner of Chaoyang Park as a new landmark in its background of sameness. The ascension in building height from the north to south demonstrates a sensitivity to the residences in the north and creates...

Opportunities for Architects: Conversation with David Basulto and David Assael

2013-11-17T23:13:33-05:00

This past week ArchDaily co-founders David Basulto and David Assael were kind enough to come to Tsinghua University as the first speakers in the EPMA SA Forum lecture series.

They spoke about the founding of ArchDaily and its journey from the Spanish-language Plataforma Arquitecture to “the world’s most visited architecture website” published in three languages. Certainly part of the site’s success comes from the co-founders’ mission to provide a tool for architects to improve the lives of urban residents across the world.

Mindful of criticisms that the site focuses heavily on sleek renders and highly internationalized buildings, Basulto and Assael talked about their goal to use ArchDaily to connect architects around the world and showcase more projects that solve problems in less privileged areas.

They emphasized the need for architects to go out into the world and learn from reality—not just books, journals, and classes.

Perhaps most importantly for...

Student Experiences: Studying Architecture in China _part 1

2013-01-10T10:09:00-05:00

The English Program for a Master's in Architecture at Tsinghua, is China's first and only such an accredited program. It's a relatively new program, so of course it's still evolving. But it has already attracted students from all over the world.. And I'd like to share a bit about their experiences in this post.

International background.
We are fortunate to have an extremely international program, in which students from a wide range of cultural backgrounds share their design developments.
The current class consists of 20 students from 5 continents and 13 nationalities. Our students come from countries like Iran, Sudan, Nigeria, New Zealand, Korea, USA, Colombia, Indonesia, Greece, Germany, Spain, Australia, Italy, Ecuador, etc.

Their undergraduate studies were done in such universities as Carnegie Mellon, USC (University of Southern California), Auckland University, Delft University of Technology, TU Munich, RISD (Rhode Island School of Design), Polytecnico di Milano, and ...

Lecture and paper submission „Critical regionalism“

2012-12-11T00:14:00-05:00

Last week the EPMA students had the submission of our first paper, the topic was „critical regionalism“.
What is critical regionalism?

„Critical regionalism is an approach to architecture that strives to counter placelessness and lack of identity in modern architecture by using the building's geographical context. The term "critical regionalism" was first used by the architectural theorists Alexander Tzonis and Liane Lefaivre and, with a slightly different meaning, by the historian-theorist Kenneth Frampton.Critical regionalism is not regionalism in the sense of vernacular architecture, but is, on the contrary, an avant-gardist, modernist approach, but one that starts from the premises of local or regional architecture.“ (Wikipedia)

During the 8-weeks long first part of the semester we had lectures about regionalism by Prof. Li Xiaodong and Prof. George Kunihiro. Both of them showed own works underlining their philosophy of working with the local. This can be meaning workin...

LANDSCAPE URBANISM - EPMA FINAL REVIEWS

2012-11-19T03:30:00-05:00

The first studio assignment at the EPMA program had eight weeks of length and the main topic was Landscape Urbanism. Eva Castro, Nicola Saladino, Libny Pacheco and Federico Ruberto were our main tutors throughout the project guiding us.

During the first week of the assignment we made a group site visit. All the students had the same site to use but for different purposes. We were divided into five groups, working on several special techniques. Brunching, networking, weaving, tilling and clustering were the different approaches we had to apply on the site.

It was a unique and very interesting experience working along with my classmates because we all came from different academic and cultural backgrounds and the project we had to work on was clearly about Landscape Urbanism something a lot of us, including myself, were not familiar with until now. We had a short period to combine our skills, organize our work frame and get the final result, the whol...

Tsinghua Initiates 24h Workshop: 5 universities, 3 continents, 10 lecturers..

2012-11-09T13:02:00-05:00

24h Workshop: "Beyond the City", also see www.24hworkshop.com .

WHAT?
The 24h Workshop is an independent international workshop that takes place simultaneously in five urban regions (Beijing, Istanbul, Turin, Delft, Pennsylvania) across three continents (Asia, Europe, North America), for a continuous 24 hours on nov 10/11th this year. The 24h symbolizes how nowadays architects and their studios work around the clock, around the world. It is an unprecedented event that has the intention to become an annual workshop format.

WHY?
Our minds and working methods become Globalized as information, travel and networks
connects us everywhere. But our architectural interventions still require local specificities
(site, client, users) and thus a local understanding. Our goal is to create an environment for academic exchange to discuss contemporary global trends, in relation to local
implementations in various parts of the world. Secondly, this goal and development in
architectur...

Exploring China; visiting remote Xinjiang and Gansu provinces

2012-10-31T07:22:00-04:00

In this blog, we don't only share our impressions in the master's program, but also our experiences in China. The most special in this international master's program to me is not primarily the study of architecture itself, but the fact that all of us, students, professors and teaching assistants come from all over the world and, moreover, all of us are in a foreign country that we are going to discover. The more we open ourselves, are interested in each other and simultaneously explore China, the more rich will the experience of this period be for all of us.

Since the first week of October in China is a week of national holidays, I used the time to travel. For quite some time I had been interested in the Autonomous Region inhabited by the Uyghur and other nationalities in the far west of China: Xinjiang. It was interesting to see how different China is. Even before seeing it by myself I could tell from the photographs that both the landscape and cities like Kashgar, but especi...

Zaha Hadid opens Galaxy SoHo in Beijing

2012-10-28T18:46:00-04:00

Last saturday there was quite a storm going through (architectural)Beijing as Zaha appeared for the opening of her first building in China's capital city. Busses full of local students mingled with other architecture fanatics to get a first official glimpse of the cities newest archi-gem. The building was not yet occupied, so this was a sort of 'soft-opening', perhaps to enjoy the architecture before it was being cluttered by ugly shop fronts and advertising?

The building is about 400,000m2, situated in the last remaining prime-plot in Beijing, next to 2nd ring road and subway station 'Chaoyangmen. First things first; I must admit.. I had never seen so many fluorescent lights in an office building.

Patrick Schumacher was later saying that the spaces would be filled with 'all kind of young, small and creative new retail and office initiatives', does that include Prada, Miu-Miu, Gucci, Chanel as well?!

The interiors were all white and curvy..
Overall, not bad at all. R...

EPMA visit to Liyuan Library by Architect Li Xiaodong

2012-10-22T01:01:00-04:00

At the beginning of the first semester of the EPMA program our class visited the Liyuan Library at the Jiaojiehe village in Huairou country, Beijing.

The trip to arrive there was an outstanding experience for me since it was the first time visiting the mountains around Beijing. I could never imagine there was such a beautiful nature and landscape just two hours away from the city center of Beijing.

As soon as we arrived at the location of the library everybody was very impressed of how naturally this building could fit in the scene. The raw materials such as timber sticks had successfully created that first impression.

The whole construction of the building is framed in glass with the wooden timber sticks surrounding. The wooden sticks allow sunlight to enter and radiate within the building which characterize the building to be essentially environmentally friendly.

The interior of the building has a lot of level changes connected with movable steps integrate...

Welcome to our blog; introducing 'China Builds'

2012-10-06T00:46:00-04:00

Dear Archinect community,

this first post is meant as in introduction to our 'China Builds', English Master's, program at Tsinghua University in Beijing, to understand what the program is about.
The rest of the blog will feature updates from students sharing their experiences while studying here, in Beijing. We're looking forward in opening up China's rapidly evolving architecture community to a broader, international audience by means of this blog and we're happy in hearing any thoughts or comments you might have!

.intro
In the School of Architecture, the English Program for Master Architecture (EPMA) provides an accredited post-professional program in integrated architectural design. It combines a global network with local implementation. The program is focused on the construction of the human habitat in China, and the application of advanced building technologies.

Our overall vision has three main objectives; first of all is the will to create a top architectural pr...