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China Lab invites contributors to join us in collectively exploring the phenomenon of large-scale development in China and beyond. Superblocks are the basic unit of China's urban development, but they are also spatial instruments with social, cultural, environmental, and economic implications, operating between the scales of architecture and the city. These redefined "Megablocks" then become laboratories for the consequences, opportunities, and potential global proliferation of Chinese urban models, reconsidered through the filters of ecology, economics, and ethics. In the Guide to Megablock Urbanisms, China Lab aims to document and advance a wider conversation on the policies and collective experiences of large-scale development that are shaping China's urban future.

PROGRAM

The four-week workshop will take place in Beijing, China, and will build on a number of research topics on large-scale development established during the previous China workshops as well as expand into new territories of urban investigation.

RESEARCH

a. Catalog urban development typologies.

b. In-depth fieldwork on several Beijing communities.

c. Mapping relationships of community-scale and urban-scale infrastructure and services (including GIS).

Entries in the 2008 Megablock Charrette have been published in the 35th issue of Urban China Magazine, entitled "How to be Holistic?" and guest edited by Neville Mars.

Sunday, 15 March 2008 / 13:00 -17:30

Main Auditorium, CAFA School of Design, Beijing

SUMMER 2007

• Golf City Magazine available at lulu.com

Monday, February 16, 2009 at 6:30pm

Wood Auditorium in Avery Hall

Columbia University

CRISIS

Volume Magazine and Urban China: The Bootleg Edition

With Benjamin Godsill, New Museum; Joseph Grima, Storefront for Art and Architecture; Jeffrey Inaba, Volume; Jeffrey Johnson, China Lab; Jiang Jun, Urban China

A China Lab + C-Lab Volume + Urban China Event

Studio Midterm Review

Megablock Urbanism: Alternatives for Large-Scale Development in China

Location: New Museum, Urban China Exhibit

5 March 2009

2pm - 6pm

Monday, February 9, 2009 at 6:30pm

Wood Auditorium in Avery Hall

Columbia University

Jeffrey Johnson, Director, will present China Lab's research at the Advancing Architectural Research debate on experimental research laboratories.

Debate Participants: Laura Kurgan, Jeffrey Inaba, Scott Marble, David Benjamin, Kazys Varnelis, Mabel O. Wilson

Monday, October 6, 2008 at 6:30pm

Wood Auditorium in Avery Hall

Columbia University

Flash Urbanism: The Making of the Contemporary Chinese City

Neville Mars, Author of The Chinese Dream (010 Publishers, 2008) and founder of Dynamic City Foundation, Beijing

Laurent Gutierrez, Architect, MAP Office, Hong Kong

Joseph Grima, Author of Instant Asia (Skira Editore, 2008) and Director of Storefront for Art and Architecture, New York

Weijen Wang, Hong Kong University, Curator of the 2005 Shenzhen Biennale or Urbanism/Architecture

Moderated by Jeffrey Johnson, Director of China Lab, GSAPP.