Matt Participates in "Great Cities" Urban Design Conference in Wuhan

This past week, Matt was in Wuhan to take part in the "Great Cities" Workshop, sponsored by the British Council and Wuhan Tiandi, which focused on how Architecture and Urban Design can help to create and shape great, liveable cities.  

The session Matt participated in, 'Urban Design in the Modern Era,' was a conversation between Matt, Li Baofeng (Architect, HUST, Wuhan), Catherine Pease (vPPR, London), and Albert Chan (Developer, Shui On Land, Hong Kong), and dealt with the question of how to make big cities (which are now dominated by large scale projects and high rises) more tuned to the human user, i.e. smaller scale, pedestrian friendly, and more liveable.  The discussion broached the subjects of scale, how to balance the best aspects of the old and new cities, diversity and pluralism in urban design, the need for changes in code at the policy level, and sustainability.

Other participants included Hisham Elkadi (Dean, SBE, University of Salford), Thomas Jefferies (Head, Manchester School of Architecture), Cheng Shidan (Wuhan University), Satoshi Ohashi (Zaha Hadid China & Asia), and Nick Whittingham (the British Consul General), et al.  

Metaamo wins Gold Prize in Liang Sicheng Cup for UNESCO site

We're happy to announce that our project, "Dialogue Between Wind and Earth," has won the sole Gold Prize in the Liang Sicheng Cup, the highest honor in a global architectural ideas competition for a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kaiping, China, for the preservation and celebration of Diaolou, a unique tower structure created by local Chinese who had travelled abroad and returned home to build with a mix of Western and Eastern influences. 

http://www.lscbadc.com/goods/?atd=show_0_18_1_0

Remarks from the judges:   "At the graphic level, this design proposal utilizes a vertical tower unit (Diaolou) and a horizontal, courtyard housing group. Woven together to generate the spatial framework of a rural cultural center, the library and museum’s two rectangular massing blocks superimpose, while cleverly resulting in an interstitial path linking the adjacent villages. Through a simple floor plan, the modulation and combination of spatial cells results in spatial variation, a rational distinction between main and service space, and rainwater collection tanks that are neatly organized into the plan grid. A continuous, pitched roof is constantly cut by courtyards and light wells, creating an interior space rich with light and shadow, while simultaneously reproducing the form and scale of the traditional courtyard houses. The programmatic form of the towers (Diaolou) not only reproduces their historical memory and becomes a sign of the cultural center, but also reflects the flow of energy by using the towers for wind capture. Across historical and present time dimensions – as well as between the cultural and natural character of architecture – the authors have created an organic joint, and an interesting translation. An excellent design should not only have an interesting concept, but the key lies in the usage of rational logic derivation, poetic spatial imagination, as well as the ability to efficiently convert those ideas and actually construct them.  There is no doubt that this team conducted a successful attempt."

The competition was sponsored by the Guangdong Housing and Urban-Rural Department, and supported by Tsinghua University, Tongji University, and Hong Kong Polytechnic University, among others.  According to the competition website, after the announcement in November 2015, they "received a total of individuals, teams and organizations from more than 10 countries and regions, [including] nearly 400 group registrations, and a final harvest of nearly 200 entries."