This week we brought Shao Foundation’s knowledge sharing meeting to the studio of Approach Architecture, which was recently relocated to Steven Holl’s Linked Hybrid. The entire SF team, members of Approach Architecture, Huang Wenjing from O.P.E.N. Architecture, Zhao Xiaoli from Beijing Youth Daily, photographer Hotzing Tone, and Elevation Workshop had the opportunity to exchange with each other some interesting ideas and information.
Viewing northwest from the studio of Approach Architecture at Linked Hybrid, designed by Steven Holl Architects.
Viewing northeast from the studio.
Liang Jingyu, principal architect of Approach Architecture showing us one of their projects.
Christopher W. Mahoney and Na Wei from Elevation Workshop.
The meeting started. First of all, Ou Ning gave a brief introduction of the meeting’s background. It started as an internal staff meeting sharing information from our respective areas of expertise, and has later evolved into a learning platform for people from the outside as well.
Pan He from Shao Foundation presented us the history and the current condition of Kinshasa, the capital of Democratic Republic of the Congo. Pan focused on the ambivalent mentality of the Kinshasa people, a dilemma resulting from the colonialisation and anti-colonialisation in recent years. On the other hand, the differences between Kinshasa and the West in terms of values and lifestyle were mentioned. Pan’s presentation was an exploration of Kinshasa’s spiritual world, rather than the description of its physical reality. Is it problematic — or even hypocritical — for a third-party person to do this kind of exploration?
Liang Jingyu from Approach Architecture outlined four tentative possibilities for the organisation and curation of the Shenzhen Biennale: The Three Paths, Archaeology, Timeline and Virtual / Reality. The Three Paths is a proposal to mimic Shenzhen’s urban condition in miniature, where exhibitions are grouped broadly within ‘districts’ and further subdivided into ‘blocks’. Archaeology explores Shenzhen and issues of urbanity as if we are from the future and have discovered the remains of a city — an incomplete record of ruins, fossils, and remains. Timeline is envisaged as a spatially continuous exhibition that groups works in terms of date, including a ‘time machine’ that explores the ancient past and the distant future. Finally, Virtual / Reality explores the way in which technology pervades our everyday lives and shapes our cities, where exhibits alternate between the ‘virtual’ and the ‘real’, as a tapestry that blurs the distinction between them.
Lawrence gave a brief introduction of the futurist Adam Greenfield and his upcoming book The City is Here For You to Use. Set in a near-future world in which the vision described in Greenfield’s previous book Everyware is realised, the book deals with the imminent über-networked life from the perspective of urbanism. Greenfield coined the neologism ‘onto’ and ‘ontome’ as alternatives to Bruce Sterling’s ’spime’, all of which are used to refer to the context-awared and geo-locatable object of the next generation.
Hotzing Tone told us his current project of photographing single people’s living environment. ‘Although this is an abused subject matter, I still see potential in it. Maybe I can do it differently? I won’t know until I try. I used to be obsessed with conceptual works, but recently I have been thinking whether or not this is necessary. This current project is by no means conceptual, but you can see all my long-term concerns and experiences in the photos. Even if the end result is not satisfactory, I’m going to have a fun ride nevertheless!’ Then he continued and described a few other interesting projects and ideas of his, which triggered extensive discussions (which also touched upon other topics from the meeting).
