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)

Phase I | April 12, 2008
Phase I | April 12, 2008

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.

ORDOS100 Site Visit | April 14, 2008
ORDOS100 Site Visit | April 14, 2008

movingcities in Ordos

ORDOS100 Site Visit | April 14, 2008
ORDOS100 Site Visit | April 14, 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

(back to Embedded Research / ORDOS100)

via via

spatial agency:
Established in 2007 by Bert de Muynck and Mónica Carriço, movingcities is a think tank based in Beijing Shanghai whose work focuses on how the practices of architecture and urbanism affect the city.

Their name is a reaction to the influential 'Shrinking Cities' project, which they critiqued for an over emphasis on just one part of a larger phenomenon. In contrast they see contemporary urbanity as being in constant flux and speak of city-regions that incorporate shrinking and expanding, rural and urban.

Their work takes the form of projects, writings and collaborations as well as interviews. (...)

Their projects take the form of embedded research on the city, usually carried out in collaboration with other architects."

creative cities:
Mov­ing­Cit­ies is an inde­pend­ent research organ­iz­a­tion based in China

archiblog:
MovingCities is a blog investigating the role that architecture and urbanism play in shaping the contemporary city. MovingCities features urban research, critical architectural investigations and publications. MovingCities operates from Beijing Shanghai, China.

snowball architecture:
Bert de Muynck is the other half of MovingCities, a Shanghai based duo of “shrinks in the urban debate” as him and his partner Mónica Carriço like to describe their practice. MovingCities are also the curators of Snowball Shanghai – Event on Finnish Architecture to be organised in Shanghai this March.