Monday 7, Venue: Multi-function Hall, 1/F, Shenzhen Civic Center, Time: 10:00-12:00

Should we accept urban life as it has evolved in the global centers? Are congestion, pollution and monotony the ultimate parameters of the modern metropolis? Will technological creep keep us complacent? Or, are some bold designers capable of conceiving an alternative future?

BARC is an ambitious collaborative design-research project initiated by the Dynamic City Foundation. BARC aims to deliver a holistic planning model for green cities. The project brings together ten teams from Holland and China in a two-tiered compressed study to conceive fundamentally new concepts that look beyond the realm of engineering and design. Phase I is a workshop that maps our ultimate desires for green living in the future. Results will be presented at the forum 'Green From Scratch' at the HKSZ Biennale 2009. Phase II is an actual urban proposal presented at the Shanghai World Expo that simulates a longterm development for Caofeidian Eco-city. Ten teams planning on top of each other for five year periods until 2060 will reveal the possibilities of evolutionary green planning.

• Urbanus (Beijing)
• MAD (Beijing)
• BAU (Shanghai)
• Tsinghua School of Architecture (Beijing)
• MVRDV (Rotterdam, Shanghai)
• ZUS (Rotterdam)
• Amateur Architecture Studio (Hangzhou)
• Powerhouse Company (Rotterdam, Copenhagen)
• Rocksteady Design (Amsterdam)
• Dynamic City Foundation (Amsterdam, Beijing)

GO WEST PROJECT

Ongoing installation throughout the city during opening week
“100 Days of Stories” – performance and exhibition. The Go West Project, initiated by Dutch journalist Michiel Hulshof and architect Daan Roggeveen, has invited taxi drivers from cities in Central and Western China to drive their taxis to Shenzhen. During the first week of the SZHKBiennale the taxis will drive around Shenzhen as mobile pavilions.

The performance of the Go West Project is titled “100 Days of Stories”. The participating taxis come from Changsha (968 km to Shenzhen), Wuhan (1440 km), Chongqing (1650 km), Zhengzhou (1762km), Shijiazhuang (2204 km) and Hohhot (2633 km). During the trip – that in some cases will take days – locals accompany the drivers from the different cities, to document the trip in images, clips and stories.

Visitors of the Biennale can take a ride in the taxis through Shenzhen. This way they can experience the new metropolises in Central and Western China. They can see the spectacular changes in pictures of new skylines and old neighbourhoods; hear the latest songs from the region. But most importantly: they can listen to the stories the taxi drivers have to tell about their own cities. So, come to the Biennale and hail one of the cabs for the surrealist experience of a taxi-ride through Shenzhen, while being confronted with stories from the fast emerging Chinese cities!

Tuesday 8, Artist Talks, Guests: Maurer United Architects, Neville Mars/DCF, WORKac, Go West Project, Huang Zhonghan, Liu Sizhao and Lin Tian, Time: 16:00 – 18:00

ARCHITECTURE OF CONSEQUENCE

 Tuesday 8, Artists Talks: Venue: Multi-function Hall, 1/F, Shenzhen Civic Center, Moderator: Bert de Muynck Guests: Brendon McGetrick, Zhu Pei, Zhu Xiaofeng, Zhang Ke, Alexander Sverdlov, Time: 16:30-18:30

Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) introduces architecture as a solution to societal crisis. Architecture of Consequence comprises a book, a travelling exhibition and a conference. Architecture of Consequence articulates the need for a shift from spatial to social tasks.

Architecture of Consequence
‘Shape our Country’, a six-month nationwide project recently organised by the NAI which invited its public to brainstorm on spatial planning in the Netherlands, resulted in a deluge of ideas and reactions. A highly diverse audience took part in workshops and sessions, and generated suggestions and proposals for fascinating new approaches to urban design taking social issues as the starting point to spatial planning. The themes that arose covered a wide range of topics, from alternative means of food production, energy policy, health care, ways of resolving current space shortages, suggestions for dealing with our structural shortage of time, the need for social cohesion and the recalibration of economic value.

In the next few years, the NAI hopes to explore these insights to arrive at an agenda for architectural responses to disciplinary and social innovation. This will initially find concrete expression in the form of an exhibtion and internationally-distributed book, launched in Shenzen.

Book
The book Architecture of Consequence – Dutch Designs on the Future discusses the work of 25 Dutch architecture firms that all approach city-making from the context of societal issues. Contemporary design practices are held up to scrutiny, using the conclusions delivered by ‘Shape our Country’ as a benchmark. The result is an agenda for spatial innovation which will serve as a springboard for urban design and architecture in the years to come. It reflects the mounting international awareness that seeking solutions to the most pressing issues of our day is everyone’s concern. The themes are universal – they motivate and move the entire international architecture community, with which this book is also a call to designers to create a better world.

International travelling exhibition
The exhibition presents a varying selection of work by the architecture firms featured in the book, chosen to reflect the particular context of the location where the exhibition is on display. São Paulo, Brazil: Bienal Internacional de Arquitetura e Design of São Paulo 31 October - 6 December 2009 Moscow, Russia : Lucky Dutch Festival 5 – 29 November and Shenzen during SZHKB 2009. The most complete form of the exhibition is expected to be presented at the NAI in February 2010.

Architecture of Consequence contributors:

• 2by4-architects,
• 2012Architecten,
• Anne Holtrop,
• Atelier Kempe Thill,
• biq stadsontwerp,
• CONCEPT0031,
• De Zwarte Hond,
• Doepel Strijkers Architects,
• Jan Konings,
• Freehouse (Jeanne van Heeswijk & Dennis Kaspori),
• Must urbanism,
• MVRDV,
• NEXT architects,
• OMA,
• Onix,
• Powerhouse Company,
• Rietveld Landscape,
• SeARCH,
• STEALTH.unlimited,
• Studio Marco Vermeulen,
• Urban Unlimited,
• Van Bergen Kolpa Architecten,
• VenhoevenCS,
• West 8,
• ZUS

For the complete program of SZHKB visit the website.