Venue: Multi-function Hall, 1/F, Shenzhen Civic Center
Time：10:00-12:00, 8 Dec
Moderator：Doreen Liu，Jeffrey Johnson
Guests：Dan Wood，David Gianotten，Joseph Grima，Urbanus (Meng Yan)，Eric Schuldenfrei，Feng Yuan, Jiang Jun,Li Xiangning, Xu Li, Fabrizio Gallanti

When urban forms and conditions are determined by a unidirectional—‘top-down’—process, it will always encounter an opposition that attempts to resist it. This opposition survives through multiple adaptations and in many forms, and even strives to make-the-most-of-it, boldly and openly. Ultimately, we must accept this condition and exploit it as a viable and vital counterpoint urbanism. This is an urban reality in Shenzhen, and perhaps throughout the rest of the Pearl River Delta, that grew out from the bottom and continues to thrive. It is an urbanism that is Southern, open, tolerant and spirited.
The forum takes place at such moment in time, and in such a place of urban reality, that we hope to take advantage of an opportunity to promote alternative urban scenarios for post-generic cities like Shenzhen and elsewhere in the PRD.

Moderator

Jeffrey Johnson is the founding director of China Lab and a co-founding principal of SLAB architecture based in New York City. As the director of China Lab, Jeffrey Johnson has focused much of his research on the topic of China’s rapid urbanization during the past 30 years. The current subject of intense interest is the super block development trend that is proliferating throughout China as the default solution to the increasing demands of urban expansion. He is co-editing a book on the subject provisionally titled “The China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanisms.” In addition to the research, Johnson lectures in both China and the United States, and directs a number collaborative China Lab/GSAPP design studios and workshops in China.

Doreen Heng LIU is the principal of NODE (Nansha Original Design). She received her MArch from UC Berkeley and Doctor of Design at Harvard Graduate School of Design. She and her office focus on contemporary urbanism in the Pearl River Delta, and the specific impact of urbanization on design and practice in the Pearl River Delta today. Her articles and architectural works have been published in many international & domestic professional magazines. She and her office also have participated in various art and architectural exhibitions including the Shanghai Biennale (2002), Venice Biennale (2003), Guangzhou Triennale (2005) and the Shenzhen Architecture Biennale (2007). Since September 2008, she is also teaching at Department of Architecture, the Chinese University of Hong Kong as Adjunct Assistant Professor. Her leading MArch studio included “Preservation & Development: Urban Design on Ronggui Waterfront Industrial District, Shunde, the PRD”(Fall 2008); and “Post Generic City: the Case of Hua Qiang-Bei District, Shenzhen” (2009-2010).

Guests

Dan Wood founded WORKac with Andraos in 2003. They have taught at various universities including Harvard University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Ohio State. Together they teach at Princeton University, focusing on the relationship between ecology and urbanism. This research is the subject of their book on dream projects called ’49 cities’, published this year in conjunction with an exhibition at the Storefront for Art and Architecture. Wood has taught at the Cooper Union in New York and in 2006 and in 2007 was invited as the Trott Professor of Architecture at Ohio State University. In 2008, Andraos and Wood taught at the Lawrence Technical University, Michigan and in 2009 will teach at Columbia University and Parsons the New School for Design.

David Gianotten, Project Director in OMA Asia (Hong Kong) ltd, Executive manager and architect, with a main focus on the management of the projects, business development, lectures, exhibitions and publications of Rem Koolhaas. He works with Victor van der Chijs on the organizational development of OMA in general. He is currently leading the work on the projects including West Kowloon Cultural District Masterplan, Hong Kong China, Taipei Arts & Performance Center, Taipei Taiwan and Shenzhen Stock Exchange, Shenzhen China.

Joseph Grima is a New York-based architect, writer and researcher. He is the director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, a seminal gallery in New York City devoted to the advancement of innovative positions in architecture, art, design and urbanism, and a correspondent for the Italian architecture magazine Abitare. His work has previously been exhibited at the Venice Biennale of Architecture, the Milan Triennale and the previous edition of the Shenzhen/Hong Kong Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism. His writing has been published widely in books, magazines and periodicals including Domus, Abitare, Volume and Urban China.

MENG Yan, founder of Urbanus, New York State Registered Architect. He received both bachelor and master degrees in Architecture from Tsinghua University and another Master in Architecture from Miami University.
URBANUS, founded in 1999, is under the leadership of partners LIU Xiaodu, MENG Yan and WANG Hui. Their completed works including Urban Tulou, Dafen Art Museum, OCT Loft Renovation, Tangshan Urban Planning Museum, OCT Art & Design Gallery, Maritime Museum of Art ,Tower of China Merchants Maritime & Logistics Ltd, Shenzhen Planning Building, Metro Tower etc. URBANUS has been exhibited internationally in prestigious shows and presented in prestigious newspapers and magazines, including New York Times, T+A, W+A, Domus, Abitare, Mark, Architecture Record,Blueprint, a+u, a+t. It was featured as one of the ten global “Design Vanguards” by Architectural Record in December, 2005, and has been awarded with many prestigious architecture prizes.

Eric Schuldenfrei is a designer who focuses on the evolving relationship between architecture, animation, and art. He received a Bachelor of Architecture from Cornell University and a Master of Philosophy from the University of Cambridge, where he is currently completing his PhD. He has taught at Princeton, Columbia, and the Architectural Association and has recently presented at the Harvard University AsiaGSD lecture series, the V&A museum in London, and the University of Cambridge.
His recent projects include: an art installation commissioned by Agnes Gund, President Emeritus of MoMA; multi-media projects for Ferragamo; computer animations for Diller + Scofidio; a multi-media theatre work “Jet Lag” which won the Builders Association’s Obie Award; architectural projects“Urban Pastoral” (with Marisa Yiu) which have been featured in many international biennales; “Mediated Labor” for the 2007 Shenzhen & Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale; a video installation “The Measure of All Things”(with Haluk Akakce) which was exhibited at Casino Luxembourg, Kunst Werke (Berlin), the Museum of Modern Art (Frankfurt), and the Centre d’art Contemporain (Geneva).

Feng Yuan received his B.A and M.A degrees majoring in block printing from Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. Later he turned to study the history of architecture and designing theories, and received his Ph. D degree majoring in architecture studies from South China University of Technology in 2004. Presently he is an associate professor and head of the Department of Design at the School of Communication and Design of Sun Yat-sen University. His major writings include Strategies of the Style: The Symbolic Production in Architecture and the Logic of Symbolization (a monograph), “Why to ‘Eat People’: The Exchange and Profit in Art and Behavior Art”, “Space Politics and the Production in Public Arts”, “The Golden Land Reform: Pearl River Delta, a Shining Sociological Imagination” (co-authored with Yang Xiaoyan), and “The Oppressed Aesthetics: A Study of The Blooded Clothes and the Picture-Politics in Class Struggles”.

Jiang Jun, designer, editor and critic, has been working on urban research and experimental study, exploring the interrelationship between design phenomenon and urban dynamic. He founded Underline Office in late 2003 and has been the editor-in-chief of Urban China Magazine since the end of 2004, in the mean time working on the book . His works were presented in exhibitions such as “Get It Louder” (2005/2007), “Guangdong Triennale” (2005), Shenzhen Biennale (2005/2007), China Contemporary in Rotterdam(2006), Kassel Documenta(2007). He is the curator of the international exhibition “Street Belongs to … All of Us!” in China in 2008. He had been invited to lecture in the domestic/international universities such as CUHK, Harvard University, UCL, Tokyo University, Seoul University, Princeton University, Columbia University, etc.

Dr. Xiangning Li is an associate professor and Assistant Dean in College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University. He is also a guest editor of Time+Architecture. In 2006, he was a visiting scholar at MIT, teaching a course on contemporary Chinese architecture and Urbanism. In 2009，he was a UFI fellow at MAK Center of Art and Architecture in Los Angeles, and a guest lecturer at TU Darmstadt, Erasmus Mundus. He lectured in universities and institutes including Harvard University，Princeton University，USC and Canadian Center for Architecture. He was the curatorial consultant for 2007 Shenzhen Biennale and is presently working as the curator for the ongoing serial forums and exhibitions for Goethe Institute.

Xu Li, graduated from Zhejiang University in 1998. He is now the editor-in-chief and assistant to publisher of Arbitare (China), and a member of China Heritage Society. He has worked in many architectural design and art mediums, engaging in the researches of communication of professional media. His current focus is on figure ornaments in classical literature as well as spatial design and research. He is the editor of 20 lessons about Modern Architecture and 20 lessons about Post-Modern Architecture

Fabrizio Gallanti, architect, University of Genoa and Ph.D. in architectural design from the Politecnico di Torino. He is a founding member of gruppo A12. In 1997 he won the Akademie Solitude Fellowship, Stuttgart (Germany) of which he was nominated Jury Chairman in 2001 and 2004. Between 1998 and 2001 he worked as a curator at the Milan Triennale (Italy) and in 2001 won the Canon Foundation Research Fellowship, Tokyo (Japan). From 2002 to 2006 he lived in Santiago de Chile working as an architect and teaching architectural design and architectural theory at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Universidad Diego Portales and Universidad Nacional Andrés Bello. He wrote for international architecture magazines such as Domus, Abitare, A+U and 32. At present he is based in Milan. He is a member of the editorial staff of Abitare magazine, as consultant to the editor. Since 2008 he teaches architectural design at the Politecnico di Milano, in the Piacenza school of architecture. His book “Contemporary Architecture in Latin America”, co-edited with Horacio Torrent and published by Phaidon, is due for release in spring 2010. In April 2010 he will curate the international symposium “ArchiLiFE”, at LiFE, Saint Nazaire, France.