URBANmedias

Often lost among the headlines about China's astonishing development has been a growing interest in the corresponding transformation of the Chinese countryside. At the forefront of architectural research and experimentation in this area is Rural Urban Framework (RUF), a studio headed by University of Hong Kong professors Joshua Bolchover and John Lin.

Since 2006, Bolchover and Lin, who originally hail from England and Taiwan, respectively, have been working with nonprofit organizations, private donors, and local governments on projects in villages throughout China. In Qinmo, in southern Guangdong province, they converted a disused school building into a community center, complete with a demonstration farm. In northern Shaanxi province, their Lingzidi bridge spans a small river to better connect local residents with agricultural fields, while accommodating washing, fishing, and small-truck access.

“Nowadays, 50 percent of the world lives in cities,” says Lin. “But we're interested in the other 50 percent—especially in China, one of the most intensively urban and intensively rural places in the world.”

Tony’s Farm is the biggest organic food farm in Shanghai, which produces certified vegetables and fruits. But it's more than just a place for vegetable production. The vision is to integrate the consumer and therefore promote a natural lifestyle.

To link the activities of the working people with the visitors of the farm, playze developed a building complex, which combines the main reception, a lobby, (working also for the future hotel rooms) and a vip area, with the new offices and an existing warehouse, where the fruits and vegetables are being packed. The building provides transparency within the manufacturing process. Thus it supports the vision of integrating the visitor and helps to reinforce the consumer confidence in the products of the farm. At the same time the building design is driven by the concept of sustainability, combined with it's iconic qualities, it communicates and promotes the core concept of the Farm...

China's next new city will be designed by US firm KPF, next to Hunan's regional capital, around a 40-hectare lake.

Adjacent to Changsha, the ancient capital city of Hunan, the design implements the sort of urban innovation that creates a sustainable and truly habitable environment.

"We can introduce integrated urban innovation," von Klemperer says, "we can combine water transport with localised energy production, cluster neighbourhood centres, advanced flood prevention and water management, and urban agriculture. Meixi is an experiment in future city planning and building. It will serve Changsha as a new CBD, but it will also serve as a paradigm for other Chinese city planners. It's a kind of live test case."

The firm seeks to achieve these goals through its dense, mixed-use urban, plan, with integration with surrounding mountains, lakes, parks and canals. Meixi Lake will eventually be home to 180,000 inhabitants, living in "villages" of 10,000 people, clustered around the canals...

Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, dedicated to sustainable architecture, has imagined and designed city so compact that nothing is more than a 15-minute walk away.

Dubbed “Great City,” the prototype suggests a Chinese city that might be built in 2021 on the outskirts of Chengdu, a city in the southwest of Asia.

Taking up just 1.3 square miles and 320 acres, Great City could be home to 80,000 people. The project proposes that 15 per cent of the total acreage would be devoted to urban parks and green areas, 60 per cent to buildings and 25 per cent to roads and walkways.

To design the world’s first pedestrian-only city, the architects considered a massive transit centre where public transport would be concentrated...

For many years, architects and city planners from around the world have been trying to create the green ideal: an entire city built to strict environmental standards- highly functional while still retaining aesthetic value.

Here’s a look at some green building and community design that caught our attention in recent months and may (or may not) become reality in the next several years. Their physical footprints may be large, but by using features such as wind power, solar, rainwater recycling and advanced air quality controls, their carbon footprints don't have to be...