It is pleasant to meet you again in Beijing. I have visited Beijing numerous times during the past nine years due to the joint project with Professor Woo Liang Yoong with the theme of “China Housing 2000” for the “Urbanization of China and North East Asia”, thus many sites of Beijing seem ever so friendly to me. Indeed, when I was assigned as judge for the “Fortune Plaza” International Competition, and as an architect of the Hanssem Beijing factory, I used to visit Beijing nearly ten times a year.
Today, I wish to discuss the Third International Design Competition, the DBEW of Hanssem. Each year, around 400 works from some 40 countries are presented, and 15 works are selected as prize winners. And among the 15 winners, thus far some have been followed through to the actual design stage; we have received a number of inquiries from applicants regarding the DBEW.
How the DBEW first started, why the theme “Design beyond East & West” was selected; what the requirements of Chinese Style, Korean Style and Japanese Style are; what the connections between architecture - interior - furniture are; and what exactly is meant by “1 Child Family” : I will first explain the above 5 sectors, introduce you to the judge's comments concerning the last two years' award winning works, and receive your questions and go into discussion.
1.
Background of DBEW International Design Competition
In 1996, a joint research project for the “Urbanization in China & North East Asia” began with Professor Woo Liang Yoong's lead, accompanied by the participation of Professor Mao and Jang Ji Ae of Tsinghua University, and Professor Peter Loae's team, the president of GSD at Harvard University. The urbanization of these regions is the largest scale of urban development in the history of mankind. The urbanization in China & North East Asia is perhaps the most important development in recent world urbanization.
Since the Industrial Revolution, modern civilization has undergone massive development under the name of urbanization throughout the world. During this stage, we have accomplished many feats compared to the past history of civilization but also come to lose quite a lot. There are worries that the industrialization and urbanization that spread all over the world in the 20th century may have destroyed civilizations that nature preciously preserved.
If we do not overcome the problems of the western style of urbanization and reflect on past development methods of modern civilization during the urbanization of China, we will not only repeat the blunders of western civilization but will also lose the last hope of mankind. When the urbanization of China becomes reality, we will have accomplished a modern civilization that promises hope for the future. This project will go above and beyond the urbanization of China and North &East Asia, and moreover, reach to present a new vision for the 21st century.
Under this concept, the two-year joint research project about the new future of urbanization in China and North East Asia has been led by Professor Woo Liang Yoong, and participated in by the Harvard University team, the Tsinghua University team, and the Korean team. At this level of understanding, the next stage was to narrow to the theme and to research into the housing problems of China, not to handle the extensive problem of urbanization.
Urbanization means the concentration of populations into cities. The concentration of populations leads straight onto housing problems, thus, we figured that handling the problems of housing comes first, after which we can then gradually widen the research boundary to the problems of urban, in order to make actual progress on this matter. That is the reason why we selected the next stage's research theme of urban in China and North East Asia, “China Housing”.
Armed with the research theme of “China Housing 2000” we proceeded with concrete problems to tackle in order to discover the problems of China's housing in more detail. The two actual sites chosen were the historical regions of Beijing and the newly built city area at the outskirts of Beijing. The Sintaichang and Number Five Ring Road situated in the center of the old city area of Beijing, and the highly populated residential area situated in the BDA in between the Beijing-Tianjin highway were research areas.
During the process of research, President Cho, Chang Gul of Hanssem who created fundamental concepts and backed the joint research presented a new proposal. “For the ultimate solution of research on the housing problem, housing design research should be considered simultaneously. Looking into Japan, which has completed its urbanization, and Korea, which is in its transition stage, and China, which is in the process of massive development, Korea and Japan have succeeded in terms of quantity provision, but have not been able to accomplish much in terms of creative design. If China follows, yet fails to overcome, then it could be regarded as being a repetition of the failure of the western world led civilization process of the 20th century. Let us think about a design that reaches beyond East and West, one that may overcome the limitations of current urbanization led by the Western world.
For the next stage of “China Housing 2000”, let us open the third International Design Competition of “Design Beyond East & West”, in which China, Korea, and Japan can come together and ponder the research on the creative design of the 21st century, in which all designers of both East and West may participate.
All this started from the joint research project with Tsinghua University. DBEW is the Bauhaus movement of the 21st century that leads us to reflect on how mankind has faced tremendous population reshuffling towards cities in the last century, how this may affect the intellectual informative society spreading worldwide, and what the design solution for this should be.
