I haven’t heard anything recently either, and I’m glad.

In my opinion:

Ordos seemed a little unrealistic for the middle of a huge economic downturn in the first place.

These types of projects (big, expensive, unrestricted) were exactly what were hurting the reputation of architecture in the first place. They further perpetuated the image of architecture as luxurious, expensive, glutinous, and inaccessible to most people.

And it is not a knock on the architect’s either, most of them are fantastic. You couldn’t turn down a invitation like that if you wanted to.

i know that at least a few of the houses are under construction... i've seen pictures of the initial site visit where all of the architects are seeing the site for the first time... they've gotta be the most amusing thing ever... people walking through the desert dressed all in black and drawing property lines in the sand...

it appears that several are definitely under construction.
as an architect i think it'll at least be an interesting place to visit later when all 100 are built...

i worked on one of the houses... and i know at the time the project helped keep the office afloat...there were other projects in the office, but not too many. we were a small office and most of those invited are small offices and many of them also don't have much built work. imo even though it is glutinous at the very least it was a great opportunity for many offices that haven't had too many big time opportunities.

@larslarson
Would this have been at JDS by any chance?

AGENDA, the bookazine released by JDS a short while back, had some pics inside from the project they did and mentioned that after hearing nothing for a long time, a few B&W construction photos appeared out of nowhere.

So who knows...

RoedGroed

No.. i was workin at one of the NY firms.

I worked on one of the houses, too.

We were in dialogue with some people over there who were refining the CDs, but haven't heard anything in a while. Some of the houses are definitely under construction, but I think it's just 'phase one' not the whole development at once.

i worked on one of the houses and i want to play in that world!

i worked at a firm that was trying to develop a version of their ordos house to be constructed in the united states on a real site with a real budget. Lets just say it wasn't going well. Damn building codes.

I remember the NY Times article first introducing the venture, and it seemed so silly. (Please excuse some of my flourishes since I'm going off of memory).

But you have a group of blue-blooded, ivy league connected architects/professors who were given a golden ticket by Herzog & DeMeuron. Few of them had a lot of actual construction experience. The people quoted in the article raved about the process - limited drawings, heavy on models. And it was all being built by migrant, Mongolian labor. I pictured tent cities forming around the site comprised of lawyers.

An argument can be made about time spent on CD's to hedge off risks and liabilities and how that hinders the design process. But...I can't think of a word to describe my discomfort around it....something about stripping away at the process that traditionally contractually binds the client and architect, that takes boring experience and knowledge, and shielding parties from liabilities and real cost by building it with migrant labor in a region lacking codes. It feels like couture fashion.

I didn't work on any of these projects, and I don't know anyone who did, so take my comments for what their worth.

i think the question of migrant workers is kind of moot. the workforce in this area is going to be migrant mongolian workers because it's in the middle of nowhere.

as far as the question of CDs and such... many of the architects asked to build the houses over there:
1. don't speak the language of those who have to read the drawings... i.e. would have to hire translators.
2. don't know the construction techniques of the area...i realize this is something you'd have to deal with in most areas of the world you're building in...but also in most areas of the world you would hire a local architect to help with the final drawings and design process. the initial intent of the project was to get the houses done fast as well...and if there's one thing they do well over there is get things done fast. firms like kpf hire chinese render farms to turn around renderings in a matter of days...i have more of an issue with that kind of thing than this.
3. this happens all the time with design architects and associate architects. do you think ds+r finished the drawings for the ICA in boston? no. perry dean rogers did... did you think they did all the site oversite? no. they hired pdr to do most of it...with occasional site visits of their own. this is true of many projects around the globe.
4. i think most would be happier with this project if they were a bit more familiar with ordos and what is being built around this project... imagine the worst kind of cookie cutter development and that's what you've got.. house after house of the exact same thing. these 100 houses will be a stark contrast.

New normal obviously hasn't hit China yet, but it will soon.