Hutongscraper

Each team was free to choose its own site. We decided to start from where we had the studio at this time, in the hutongs of Beijing, where the old urban fabric is a base for vertical densification. How do we understand the Chinese ground-based community interactions and how do we respond to the necessity of a growing urban density? What is in the vernacular language potentially achievable in modernity? We have studied and analysed the social patterns and the city fabric of ancient Ming Beijing. It helped us to reinterpret the hutong structure as a village in mutation.

• Date: 2007
• Categories: Planning
• Client: Beijing, China