PROJECT: Architectural Association Visiting School Chengdu 2017

Tutors 9 Days Workshop

Chinese metropolitan cities change rapidly every day - an enormous exodus from countryside as well as from secondary cities in search for jobs or better quality of life.

For many is the first time living in a city, meaning there is a huge contrast and need for adaption to a new way of living, these aspects can be seen daily in how people behave and act in some cases in just finished urban areas and architecture (almost as a rural insertion into a city).

For example you can find growing vegetables in public urban landscape result of a preexistence of farm land which was transformed into an urban area, or migrants which start living in certain areas and trying to adapt but keeping some rural habits; these behaviors can be seen as an adaptive solution to implement architecture and urban planning, in other cases and widely build are extensions of architecture by DIY structures on rooftops, between buildings, etc. These in many cases are the first living place for migrants upon arrival to cities.

These extensions which seem to be harmless or relatively discreet, once seen as whole become a stronger and a continuous element of cities skylines, definitely defining it.

The research and understanding of these structures from its use, location and character can become a typology to develop a prototype during the AA visiting school in Chengdu, with the results would be interesting to see how they could inspire the next structures and how this workshop would definitely start to impact the city and MARK IT.

Can we get inspirations from Asian construction traditions? Asian cities used timber as a base construction material for thousands of years…. Can we tackle with a modern urban issue with traditional materials? Can timber represent or reflect the digital and information era we live in?

Text by Joao Lemos