You are invited to the launch of the exhibition, "Rethinking Shanghai's Urban Housing" at the SIA Merbau Gallery Bar on 9 June 2006 at 7 pm. The exhibition features the work of the Year Four Studio on Shanghai housing.

There will be a reception and slide show at the launch party. The exhibition will end on 22 June 2006. Hope to see you there!

Event  : Launch of Rethinking Shanghai’s Urban Housing Exhibition 

Venue : SIA - Merbau Gallery Bar, 79 Neil Road

Date   : Friday, 9 June 2006

Time   : 7.00 pm

Guest of Honor: Rita Soh, President, Singapore Institute of Architects

Background

Since the 1980s, Shanghai saw the massive growth in residential development in the city core, with the imminent erasure of the historical urban fabric, especially of the form of urban housing known as the lilong. New developments take on limited typologies of towers and slab blocks. An important question to consider is: are there alternatives to urban housing in such a historically rich city?  The exhibition showcases an inquiry in the design studio at the Department of Architecture at the National University of Singapore, if urban housing can take into account the urban transformation of the surrounding urban fabric and propose alternatives to the mega-superblocks favored in the residential development of Shanghai.

The form of urban intervention proposed acknowledges the need for transformation, as well as try to capture a sense of the old neighborhoods that have been rapidly replaced. Although not nostalgic for a past that many Chinese are glad to leave behind, a sense of scale and relationship is sought in the new proposals, which embody high-density but are not necessarily mega-blocks, but instead embody sustainable urban infrastructure. Issues like design for social and ecological sustainability, urban flux, new lifestyle preferences and social justice have been re-examined in the context of urban housing.

updated 31st May 2006