Project General Manager: Li Yali
Director: Wendy Wu
Project Manager: Wu Siying
Curatorial Research: Wendy Wu | Gong Yidan, Wu Siying, Wang Qinxue | Huang Xurong (Internship)
Urban Design: Yu Shiyao, Zhang Xuejuan | Ma Xiying, Dong Wenhan | Ma Xiying, Pu Jinyan (Landscape) | Ding Yimeng, Ding Jiawei, Jiang Shaoshuai, Gao Jin (Internship)
Collaborators: O-office (Gankeng Village), NODE (Baishitang Village)
Client: Longgang District Urban Management Bureau
Project Location: Gankeng New Village, Liangmao New Village, Matishan Village, Baishitang Village, Shangshe Village, Mazu North Village, Longgang District, Shenzhen
Design Period: 2021-
Construction: 2022-
As a product of Shenzhen’s rapid urbanization process, the urban village has become a distinctive landmark of Shenzhen as an “Immigrant city”. The rapid expansion of spatial production over the past 40 years is giving way to progressive stock renewal. Our city is in dire need of finding new theories and new models.
URBANUS has been engaging in urban villages since 2004, conducted research on four urban villages and put forward renovation proposals, and published the book ” City Village / Village City ” in 2005. In 2012, URBANUS submitted a proposal to Luohu District Government for the preservation of the Hubei Ancient Village. In 2016, URBANUS voluntarily organized the “Hubei Ancient Village 120 Urban Public Plan” together with Shenzhen architectural planning experts and scholars, and people from cultural, media, and education circles to jointly make suggestions for the protection of the ancient village of Hubei and the revival of Luohu. As a result, Hubei village was included in the list of the first group of urban historical features protection areas in Shenzhen. In 2016, URBANUS conducted a study on the protection and renovation of Nantou Old Town, and proposed the concept of “city/village co-existence”. In 2017, URBANUS took the opportunity of the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Biennale to turn its research on Nantou Old Town into a ground-breaking renovation project and initiated the renovation of Nantou Old Town.
In 2021, URBANUS continues to uphold the concept of “city as an exhibition site, exhibition as praxis” and cooperates with the Longgang District Government. URBANUS adopts the urban curation model to intervene in the transformation of urban villages, leading multiple architect teams to work together to carry out a full range of design and mechanism innovation practices, further emphasizing the link between urban villages and local history, and trying to redefine and expand the solidified boundary in the urban-rural duality space, as well as the social practice. Through the analysis of urban villages as special samples of Chinese urbanization, the initiative attempts to portray a different picture of China’s future urban dwellings that is different from the mainstream imagination.
