Beijing Design Week 2011
Hutopolis exhibition
“Hutopolis” is a research program that aims to investigate new boundaries for the urban development in China. The study intends to re-use and enhance the existing urban framework and networks as a key idea to generate a new evolution of the city.
Hutopolis at Beijing Design Week is a retrospective on the urban condition of Beijing and specifically its Hutongs.Imagined as an exploration in three chapters on the urban fabric of the old Beijing, the exhibition wants to establish a relationship with the audience engaging a dialogue. The discourse starts from a general picture of the old city, continues with a scientific breakdown into the four principles and concludes at a virtual re-composition of an ideal image of the city.
- A series of boards will raise questions about the facts and they will present figures and info-graphics to illustrate the research.
- Two short movies will offer a close approach to the hutongs atmosphere, the way of living and the most personal portrait of the urban and social conditions.
- A touch screen application will allow the audience to interact with a hutong map to understand the morphology and functions through an urban game.
By picturing, analyzing, and re-imagining a part of the city, “Hutopolis” wants to engage preservation and modernization into a dialogue to foster an evolution.
China and Spain based firm “AQSO arquitectos office” organizes this exhibition curated by Giannantonio Bongiorno, with the support of a wide team of designers, architects, film makers and software developers.
About HUTOPOLIS exhibition
From Monday 26 of September to Monday 3rd of October.
Location: 8 Dawailangyin Hutong, Dashilar. Xicheng district. Beijing.
Address in Chinese: 大栅栏大外廊营胡同8号
Free admission.
Opening hours: Daily from 12:00h to 20:00h
More information: http://www.hutopolis.info
Download the full press kit from http://www.hutopolis.info/press
For aditional information, contact [email protected]
ABOUT AQSO ARQUITECTOS OFFICE
AQSO is a multidisciplinary office composed of an international group of young professionals dedicated to contemporary architecture, urban planning and cultural research. Their philosophy combines a rigorous and pragmatic approach with an innovative attitude.
The office approaches every project with an ambitious methodology that investigates and analyzes social, economic, technical and sustainable issues. Their ability covers a wide range of types and scales, from public, commercial and residential buildings to town planning and urbanism.
AQSO understands architecture as a multidisciplinary process, a comprehensive approach beyond living spaces, a method in cooperation with different professionals and consultants to become the coherent nexus between imagination and reality.
Their team has the international vision, experience, flexibility and ability to materialize each project from concept to site supervision.
The office is founded by Luis Aguirre and is an international partnership. The practice relies on a multicultural team of experienced architects working on an open cross-disciplinary collaboration platform.
AQSO has been awarded for several international design competitions including Europan 9 and the Self-sufficient IaaC contest. The firm has received several prizes for public and restricted architectural competitions in Spain and China, where the company is based.
More information: http://www.aqso.net
ABOUT GIANNANTONIO BONGIORNO
Giannantonio Bongiorno is an italian architect currently based in Beijing.Educated in universities in Germany and Italy he graduated from Politecnico di Milano. During and after the university he was tutor in several courses and workshops of the Milan’s Polytechnic, being also coordinator for projects such as the “Culture of Living” exhibition host in Indonesia in 2005 and the “Urban Light Walk” exhibition hosted at the Milan’s design week.
Giannantonio in the past years has been working for Office for Metropolitan Architecture (Rem Koolhaas) and MAD Architects.
Operating within Asia and Europe, he has been recently working on a number of large scale development and promoting cultural projects bridging Europe and China.
In his designs, he wants to achieve a balance between critical and pragmatic approaches to architecture.
Together with Luis Aguirre and AQSO he is now working at “Hutopolis” a research project that focus on the urban fabric of Beijing.
ABOUT MEDIA CONSTRUCTIONS
Media Constructions is a Russian new-com concentrating its business in the development of new interactive interfaces. Media Constructions operates between Russia and China with bases in Yakutsk and Hong Kong.
Media Constructions developed for Hutopolis the “Hutopolis build your Hutong” application and the related multi-touch device.
Media Constructions has been founded in 2010 by Dmitry Egorov, Nikolay Chukrov, Vladimir Popov, Djulus Diodorov with the support of Giannantonio Bongiorno.
More information: http://www.mediaconstructions.com
