ORDOS100

Project Statement

The scope of the project is to Develop 100 hundred villas in Ordos, Inner Mongolia, China, for the Client, Jiang Yuan Water Engineering Ltd. FAKE Design, Ai Wei Wei studio in Beijing, has developed the masterplan for the 100 parcels of land and will curate the project, while Herzog and de Meuron have selected the 100 architects to participate. The collection of 100 Architects hail from 27 countries around the globe. The project has been divided into 2 phases. The first phase is the development of 28 parcels while the second phase will develop the remaining 72. Each architect is responsible for a 1000 square meter Villa. (source: ORDOS100 official website)

movingcities and ORDOS100

“It’s funny… The desert’s a big place, but nothing really ever gets lost there.”
The English Patient, 1996

No better way to understand the role that architecture and urbanism are playing in shaping the contemporary city than finding some concrete examples. The ORDOS100-project is one of a particular kind, both in ambition, assemblage, discourse, creativity and experiment. Our engagement is one that explores the intermingling mechanisms of architectural media, discourse engineering, planning psychology and embedded empathy.

movingcities in Ordos

• Phase I | January 25-27, 2008
• Phase II | April 11-17, 2008
• Phase III | June 24-29, 2008

movingcities + media + ORDOS100

International architects = international media coverage. As much as ORDOS100 is an unique opportunity for international architects to build a 1000 square meter villa, a titillating constellation of creativity, a never before seen experiment, a collage city in action and a real estate investment where business is branding ORDOS100 also challenges the discourse on architecture. For each architect another story, for each villa another interpretation, for every design another story, for each concept another legitimation.

How to understand what is happening? One important way to look at ORDOS100-project is through the media coverage of this, leaving aside blogs and online forums and currently only in English. Both being peri-participants and observers of this circus of criticality, this festival of forms and meeting of minds, movingcities creates an image of a project, discussion and discourse in making. An overview of past, present and future headlines.

movingcities publishes ORDOS100

• “An interview with Ai Weiwei (CN) | FAKE Design” | MARK Magazine #12 | Feb/March, 2008
• Belgian Architects in China | lecture Embassy of Belgium in Beijing | April 10, 2008
• “ORDOS100: avant-garde architecture in the desert” | ArtForum.cn | April 22, 2008
• “Babel for Billionaires” | Mark Magazine #15 | August/September, 2008
• “How Foreign Architects became International Architects” | Urban China Magazine #33 | January, 2009
• Ordos100 | Perspective Plus | January, 2009
• Ordos100 | A+215 | December 2008 (via Polaris Architects, text dutch only)

(back to Embedded Research / ORDOS100)