MAD-ness: Huaxi City Centre

There are definitely too many blog references to this project to name... so going straight to the source: "MAD recently organized a collaborative masterplanning project in South West China. Ten young international architects were invited to take part in an urban experiment, to design a new city centre on a scenic natural site close to the city of Guiyang. The participating architects were: Atelier Manferdini (USA), BIG (DENMARK), Dieguez Fridman (ARGENTINA), EMERGENT/Tom Wiscombe (USA), HouLiang Architecture (CHINA), JDS (DENMARK/BELGIUM), MAD (CHINA), Mass Studies (KOREA), Rojkind Arquitectos (MEXICO), Serie (UK/INDIA), Sou Fujimoto Architects (JAPAN).


:: image via Designboom

"China has become the global laboratory for urbanization, where the logical endpoint of current architectural trends can be seen, and the effects of leaving private developers to create cities can most keenly be felt. This experiment is not intended to create an idealized urban reality: rather, it is an attempt to push these trends to their purest form. ... The masterplan was jointly designed by Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute, Studio 6 and MAD."






:: images via Designboom

With this cast of players, there's definitely some compelling visuals... and it's always an interesting phenomenon to see many diverse designers work juxtaposed into a singular master plan... (although it seems a recent trend). Some of the more veg.itectural highlights (all images via a comprehensive post on Designboom):

Mass Studies





Sou Fujimoto



JDS



Serie



Rojkind Architects



BIG



Dieguez Fridman