Get to know CROSSBOUNDARIES, award-winng architecture studio in Beijing, founded by Binke Lenhardt and Hao Dong, pioneering in the field of architecture for the future of education. For the CITYMAKERS accelerator program the team brought their vision along to not only create physical learning environments: Creating design thinking based learning programs for kids to become better city makers in the future.
Alternative urbanism meets social entrepreneurship. China meets Europe. 30 CITYMAKERS from 16 cities – from Beijing and Berlin, Taipei and Vienna, Munich and Shanghai – all with powerful innovative ideas for future livable cities, came together for two and a half days at an almost magical place in the countryside south of Berlin: Drahnsdorf.
The incubator project „Future of Living“ was one of three projects that received support from the CITYMAKERS China – Germany program during its second year of funding. We want to know: What happened since then, how did the project continue? On behalf of the team, Iris Belle answered the questions.
Die Sinologin und Politikwissenschaftlerin Katja Levy gibt einen kurzen Einblick, welche Mittel und Wege der politischen Meinungsbildung und -artikulation in China praktiziert werden.
What is on the horizon in the 4th year of the program? We have set 3 goals: Deepen, Focus, Transform.
Song Qun is an architect, artist and curator from Xian, the founder of “Bendi 本地- Local Life”, a 3,000 sqm large cultural space for the contemporary presentation of “Urban Memory”. His approach is beyond mainstream understanding of heritage in China, advocating for cultural memory as the story of everyday life of people and their objects. What impressed him most in Berlin was the Jewish Museum. “The openness of Berliners towards the history of their city is admirable, and I learned a lot from the fact that each museum is writing the history of the city in its own way.”
Daniel Zhang is an architect based in Changsha who studied architecture at Carnegie Mellon University in the US and continued a doctorate in India and Germany. He is also the founder of P8 Community in Changsha.
From Dialogue to Action: Since 2016, CITYMAKERS supported the realization of selected project ideas in the context of liveable city making. Read here about the ‘CITYMAKERS-Future of Living’ incubator team.
How to make sure to hear and harvest all the interesting individual stories of participants and make them available to a larger audience? We set up a one-to-one dialogue space hosted by CITYMAKERS-editor and architect Kika Yang. Our key questions of interest: What motivates and drives you personally as a city maker? What was your particular interest in joining this lab? What potential do you see in the CITYMAKERS-platform? Here we share results from these conversations with Laura Bruns, Sebastian Schlecht, Jah Ying Chung, Jonas Schorr, Marlene Welzl, Andrea Weigt & Cyrus Khazaheli through a series of podcasts.
From Dialogue to Action: Since 2016, CITYMAKERS China – Germany facilitated and supported the realization of a number of selected project ideas in the context of liveable city making. Read here about the CITYMAKERS’ culture and identity incubator team ‘Wuhan Narrative’.
Professor CAI Yongjie is the head of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning at Tongji University Shanghai. His research fields are Urban Design, Public Space, Architectural Design, incl. Urban Sociology and traditional urban space
STADTMACHER China – Deutschland, Silvan Hagenbrock und Bettine Marissen, sprachen mit Benjamin Scheerbarth, Projektleiter des Eckwerk Berlin, über das Holzmarkt „Dorf“ an der Spree, seine Relevanz für China und über Deutschlands zukünftig höchstes Holzhochaus, das Eckwerk, in dem Wohnen und Arbeiten vereint werden sollen.
“Die Zukunft Chinas kann man in Shanghai sehen, die Gegenwart in Peking und seine Geschichte in Xi’an” lautet eine Redensart in China. SONG Qun, Jahrgang 1970, stammt aus Xi’an. Als Künstler und Ideengeber arbeitet er seit vielen Jahren in den Bereichen Architektur, Kunst, Design und Kreativindustrie. Er ist Gründer und Herausgeber der Magazine “local 本地” und “MOMADA” und sammelt und archiviert Fotos, Videos und Texte zur Stadtgeschichte.
LIANG Jingyu kuratierte den chinesischen Pavillon auf der Architekturbiennale in Venedig 2016. Er gründete das Architekturbüro „approach architecture studio“ und gestaltete einen neuen Ort des Lernens auf dem Campus der EURASIA-Universität in Xian: das „Wohnzimmer“ 学生客厅. STADTMACHER China – Deutschland traf LIANG in Xian und sprach mit ihm über Nachbarschaft und Gemeinschaft.
ZHANG Rubing and WANG Keyao are Architects and have worked for China Architecture and Design Group (CADG). In 2012, they founded their own company Zhijian Workshop which not only focusses on renovation research of old and industrial buildings but also undertakes design and art projects in the same field.
Get to know Green Steps, aiming for a radical but gradual transformation of human behavioral architecture and the acceleration of environmental education. They have prototyped a gamified social network which drives offline community building and nature connection.
Shi Ming ist freier Journalist, und lebt seit 1987 in Deutschland. Für die Berlin-Beijing Learning Cities Map untersucht er die Berliner Schnauze und die Pekinger Zunge.
ZHANG Zhen und Kika YANG sprachen mit Dr. Eduard Kögel, Andreas Ruby und Erhard An-He Kinzelbach über ihre persönlichen China-Erfahrungenund über das dreitägige Symposium „Regions on the Rise: Culture and Architecture as Drivers for Rural Development” in Songyang, China.
Constellations (Shanghai) Co. Ltd. founded in 2009, consulting agency dedicated to “Enabling learning leading and collaborating for sustainable futures”.
Cultural heritage in Wuhan is evidence of the past and a signpost to the future. It would be horrible to live in a city with no trace of the past, said YANG Fan, Founder of China Endangered Culture Protectors and Wuhan Heritage Walks.