Month: May 2022

MVRDV and Fugger Foundation are celebrating the 500th anniversary of the Fuggerei social housing project, the world’s oldest housing complex, with a ceremonial pavilion and three proposals for “Fuggerei of the Future”. The celebration features a 5-week programme of interdisciplinary discussions and events about social housing and current global challenges. In honor of the occasion, MVRDV designed the ‘NEXT500’ pavilion, which exhibits an MVRDV study on the “Fuggerei of the Future”, presenting a new Fuggerei code and three proposals for new Fuggerei complexes around the world.

The maid’s quarters are “with their days numbered”, although they still find a place in the new luxury apartments. The information is from a report published in Folha de S. Paulo in March of this year, which says that in 2018 less than 1% of domestic workers, mostly black women, lived on the premises of their employers – a low number when compared to the 12% of 1995. With the decrease in the number of professionals residing in the employers’ homes, the “maid’s room” would gradually be no longer part of the architectural plans of Brazilian housing buildings.

Almost seven kilometers from the green of Uhuru Park in central Nairobi, lies the informal settlement of Kibera. It is an area whose urban character consists of corrugated iron roofs, mud walls, and a complicated network of utility poles. Kibera, at this point in time, is a well-known place. Much has been written and researched on this “city within a city,” from its infrastructural issues to its navigation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beyond the physical characteristics that each body presents, there are endless immaterial references that are inherited through the assimilation of time, memory, and place. These awaken visual references that lie within the collective imaginary constructing prejudices. To relinquish them implies a process of resignifying, and in this instance, mourning becomes the construction of grief.

Egret Bay art museum is located in Rizhao, Shandong Province. It is located at the east foot of Wulian mountain, a famous Buddhist mountain. Mr. Su Dongpo visited the mountain many times during the reign of the governor of Mizhou, and left a good sentence of “its beauty does not reduce the wild geese”. The construction concept of the town is to “reshape the relationship between man and nature”. On a land area of 10000 mu, it combines the aesthetic space with the natural landscape and various business forms. After more than ten years of construction, it seems to be an ideal place for people to live. In the early spring of this year, Mr. Xu qunde, the founder of egret Bay, went on an outing with me. I talked to him about a building I had built before. There was a process photo. In the picture, there was a woven curved steel mesh floating lightly in the woods hidden by mist. Seeing this picture, Mr. Xu immediately said that there was a place in egret bay where one could be woven, which was located in the cherry blossom Valley mentioned above. Mr. Xu wants to build a building in the center of Cherry Valley as a place for music, dance, drama, and other artistic activities. He described to me that his ideal state is “nature is the best”, the cherry tree is the main body, and the architecture is hidden in it. The two form a perfect relationship. As I understand it, this building is like a small thatched canopy hidden in deep mountains and lakes in Chinese landscape painting, facing the landscape with an elegant attitude, and taking nature as the soul.

Set on the ridgeline of the Sahyadri hills, this holiday home overlooks the dramatic western ghats. This linear house is laid out along a 75 m long north-south axis facing the valley view. The 75 m long solid western wall is clad in copper slate stone that shimmers in the western setting sun. The robust wall protects the house from the westerly winds and rain; making the eastern facing decks habitable all year round. Two distinct east-facing building volumes are separated by the infinity pool and garden.