18. AA Beijing, CH

NEO-CENTRE

The programme will investigate how to inject the intelligence and automation of computational design into more practical and comprehensive models through experimentation on a high-density redevelopment. With Beijing as our test bed we will look at current plans to diminish the bottleneck that has suffocated the growth of the city centre by creating 11 new distributed city centres.

According to city planning policy, Tongzhou will be the paradigm among these new centres. In 2010 the local government adopted the concept of ‘River of Time and Space’ – a play on the history and culture of Tongzhou Canal – as the basis of their new urban plan. Associated with this are four themes: Shadow of Islands, Shadow of Pagoda, Shadow of Buildings and Shadow of Trees. Rather than interpreting this scheme from a metaphorical perspective, however, the work­shop aims to explore a series of generic computational models in neighbourhood scale integrating parameters that are extracted from social and economic dimen­sions. We will explore three main issues: 1. The use of computational processes to generate time-dependent outcomes that respond to changing conditions with minimum redundancy and maximum capacity – as an alternative to one-off development. 2. The potential of computational design to achieve social integration and maintain social diversity on the basis of communal integrity. 3. Boosting economic growth – can we use computational design to stitch an economically robust higher-density district into the city?

DATE | 28 January – 5 February 2012
INSTITUTE | Tsinghua Architectural Design & Research Institute and Institute of International Engineering Project Management, Tsinghua University
COURSE DIRECTOR | Yan Gao
TUTORS | Kristof Crolla & Brendon Carlin, Chen Chen & Nicola Saladino, Daniel Gillen &  Feng Xu, Qiang Chang & Yan Gao