The scheme was carried out with the support of Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute and Studio 6 who wanted to see what the foreign designers could develop when given the brief to produce new concepts and urban vision masterplan for the Huaxi city center of Guiyang, south western China.
The international architects invited by MAD included: Atelier Manferdini, USA, BIG, Denmark, Dieguez Fridman, Argentina, Emergent/Tom Wiscombe from the USA, HouLiang Architecture, China, JDS from Denmark and Belgium, MAD, China, Mass Studies Korea, Rojkind Arquitectos, Mexico, Serie, UK and India, Sou Fujimoto Architects, Japan.
The masterplan is part of a larger design theory that seeks to find new innovative ways to design an increasing urban landscape in China. MAD said that in 20 years time, another 200 to 400 new cities will be built, and this scheme was a way to avoid monotonous repetition.
A MAD spokesperson said: “Until now, the results of this overwhelming urbanization have been defined by high-density, high-speed and low-quality duplication: the urban space is meaningless, crowded and soulless.
“Are we going to continue copying the skyline of Western cities created over a hundred years of industrial civilisation? Will Manhattan and Chicago continue to be our model city, even after 15 years of urban construction in China?”
They wanted to fuse the natural and artificial to create a new future architectural language, and push the trend for a balance between development and the natural environment whilst exploring its failings and successes.
“Based on a Chinese understanding of nature, this joint urban experiment aims to explore whether we can use new technologies and global ideas to reconnect the natural and man-made world,” said MAD.
