Prosperous Lishui Four Operational Spaces

International Competition Future ShanShui City: Dwellings in Lishui Mountains

Universities

Politecnico di Torino (DAD - China Room + Istituto di Architettura Montana | DIST - China Room)

South China University of Technology (School of Architecture)

Design Team

Project Leaders: Michele Bonino and Yimin Sun

Project Managers: Mauro Berta, Edoardo Bruno, Huang Yeqiang, and Zhu Xiaojing

Urban Planning and Design: Leonardo Ramondetti, Angelo Sampieri, Ping Su, and Chunyang Zhang

Architectural Design: Antonio De Rossi, Roberto Dini, Camilla Forina, Martina Franco, Ziyu Lin, Xian Lu, Haohao Xu, and Qunjie Zhang

Consultants on Chinese Urbanization Processes: Francesca Governa and Astrid Safina

Models: ModLab Arch, Awada Areej, Giulia Bertola, Alessandro Capalbo and Enrico Pupi

Collaborators: Simona Belluscio, Huirong Chen, Weiying Chen, Alessandro Delforno, Manjiao Huang, Yingyi Lv, Ahmed Mansouri, Riccardo Masala, Matteo Migliaccio, Lidia Preti, Piera Elisa Ragusa, Ottavia Valz Gris, Sheng Xia, and Andrea Zegna, Wentian Zheng

Academic Board

Alessandro Armando, Michela Barosio, Giulia Bertola, Daniela Bosia, Simona Canepa, Martina Crapolicchio, Massimo Crotti, Eleonora Gabbarini, Rossella Gugliotta, Roberta Ingaramo, Lin Yang, Paolo Mellano, Maicol Negrello, Francesco Novelli, Maria Paola Repellino, Ana Ricchiardi, Davide Rolfo, Francesca Ronco, Marco Trisciuoglio, Zeynep Tulumen, Elena Vigliocco, Zhang Ting

Jury Members

Jiaming Cao (vice president of the Architectural Society of China, editor in chief of Architectural Practice Magazine), Kai Cui (academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering), Yansong Ma (founder and partner of MAD Architects), Weidong Ma (executive of Architecture and Urbanism [a+u), founder of One-tenth Art Company), Nishizawa Ryue (2010 Pritzker prize winner; co-founder of SANAA Architects), Alan J. Plattus (founder of Yale Urban Design Workshop and Center for Urban Design Research: YUDW), Zhiqiang Wu (academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, vice president of Tongji University), Shiling Zheng (academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences, academician of French Academy of Architecture and Science), and Jian Zhuo (president of Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning and Design Institute CO., LTD., director of Urban Planning Society of China)

Competition Credits

Organizer: Lishui Municipal People’s Government

Co-Organizer: Lishui Municipal Development and Reform Commission, Dwellings in Lishui Mountains Project Planning and Construction Leading Group Office

Planning Execution and Organization: Shanghai One-Tenth Art Space Co., Ltd.

Media Support: Architectural Practice Magazine, Architecture and Urbanism (a+u), iCity Smart City Knowledge Service Platform

The Prosperous Lishui project is constructed around a main hypothesis of repositioning the center of the entire metropolitan area of Lishui in the agricultural valley to the south of the established city. This extensive productive plain thus sets out to become the core of new urban settlement developed at its edges: along the principal mobility infrastructures that run around it, and against the slopes of the mountains that face it. On the basis of this choice, the project develops four themes through which to redefine programs, morphologies, and functions of the whole metropolitan system: 1. reinforcement of agricultural production in the valley and insertion of a series of new enhancements to give it a prevalently urban character;

2. reorganization of the mobility system; 3. definition of new settlement systems in close relation to orography;

4. development of new ecological infrastructures, starting with the system of water.

Illustration Credits

Figs. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11-12. Photographs taken in September–October 2021 by Raul Ariano

Prosperous Lishui. Four operational spaces

Figs. 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-16-17-18-19-20-21-22-29-30-31-32-33-34-35-38-39-41-43. Plans and maps drawn by Leonardo Ramondetti

Figs. 9-11-23-36-37-45. Renders by the Guangzhou Frontop Computer Graphics Technology Co.

Figs. 10-24. Sections drawn by Edoardo Bruno and Camilla Forina

Figs. 12-13-14-15-25-26-27-28. Models by ModLab Arch, Awada Areej, Giulia Bertola, Edoardo Bruno, Alessandro Capalbo, Camilla Forina, and Enrico Pupi. Photographs by Pietro Merlo, assistant Lorenzo Mongile, Multimedia Lab.

Figs. 40-42-44. Plans drawn by Ping Su and Chunyang Zhang

Prosperous Lishui. Ten site-specific projects

Fig. 1. Map drawn by Leonardo Ramondetti

Figs. 2-3-4-5-6-8. Drawings by Jingzhe Dong and Chen Yang

Figs. 8-9-10-11. Drawings by Dingran Chen, Francesco Costantin and Dorian Fabbro

Figs. 13-14-15. Drawings by Kuan Lu, Sihong Ye, Peining Wang and Alessandro Lovisolo

Figs. 16-17-18-19-20. Drawings by Chiara Lasorsa, Alessandra Murgia, Aqsa Mushtaq and Igli Shehi

Figs. 21-22-23. Marta Erby, Kevin Gaxhja, Claire Giacomelli and Luca Torresi

Figs. 24-25. Drawings by Haochen Bai, Haoyan Chen, Ye Jiang and Alessandro Lovisolo

Figs. 26-27-28. Drawings by Irena Shehu, Wenwu Wang and Jingyan Zhou

Figs. 29-30. Drawings by Zihe Wang, Rui Xu, Yelin Zhang and Alessandro Lovisolo

Figs. 31-32-33-34. Drawings by Alessandro Corbino, Alessandro Lovisolo and Vida Maghsoudlou

Motlagh

Figs. 35-36-37. Drawings by Chiara Di Presa and Francesca Merico

Architecture for Suburban China

Figs. 1-2-9. Photographs taken in May 2013 by Vector Architects

Figs. 3-4. Photographs taken in November 2017 by Shengliang Su (Vector Architects)

Figs. 5-6. Models by Vector Architects, October 2017

Fig. 7-8-10. Photographs taken in October 2017 by Chen Hao (Vector Architects)

Fig. 11. Photographs taken in June 2016 by Vector Architects

Every reasonable attempt to secure permissions for the visual material reproduced herein has been made by the author. The authors apologize to anyone who has not been reached.

Text Credits

The Tale of a Research Project

Suburbanization Processes in Rural China and The Lishui Valley by Leonardo Ramondetti

The Competition Future Shan-shui City by Edoardo Bruno

The Suburban Valley as Ground for Teaching Activities by Mauro Berta

About this Book by Leonardo Ramondetti, Edoardo Bruno and Mauro Berta

Prosperous Lishu. Four Operational Spaces by Leonardo Ramondetti

Prosperous Lishu. Ten Site-specific Projects

Farming an Online World, The Hillside, Weak and Diffuse Facilities, The Floating Community, The Agricultural Hub, Inhabiting the Mountain Clusters, and Collecting Every Single Drop by Leonardo Ramondetti

Farmland in a Frame, Living the Riversides, and The Cultural Strip by Edoardo Bruno and Mauro Berta

Architecture for Suburban China by Gong Dong and Shida Liu

Acknowledgments

This book received assistance and support from many people and institutions. First, we offer our sincere thanks to Michele Bonino and Angelo Sampieri who guided us in the design activities and the editorial process. We would not have been able to achieve this result without their help.

This book features the project work developed by the China Room research group and IAM—Istituto di Architettura Montana of the Politecnico di Torino for the international competition Future Shanshui City: Dwellings in Lishui Mountains. We thank all the participants in the project, especially Xian Lu, who brought this opportunity to our attention, and Martina Franco, for her commitment in the design activities. We also acknowledge the help of the professors and researchers at the Department of Architecture and Design and the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning who joined the academic board, and ModLab Arch for the architectural models.

We are grateful to Raul Ariano, Gong Dong, Shida Liu, and Zhengsi Liu for their valuable contributions.

Finally, this book greatly benefited from the stimulating environment of the Master’s Degree in Architecture Construction City at Politecnico di Torino and the SCUT-PoliTo Co-Run program at the South China University of Technology. We thank the students for their passion, especially Alessandro Lovisolo, who helped us to finalize some of the graphic materials.

About the Authors

Raul Ariano is an Italian photographer based in Shanghai specializing in portraits.

Mauro Berta, Ph.D. in Architecture, is an associate professor of Architectural and Urban Design at the Department of Architecture and Design at Politecnico di Torino. His work focuses on urban regeneration and sustainable design. He has been a visiting researcher and lecturer in several Chinese and Japanese universities, and the organizer responsible for the Co-Run Dual Master’s of Science in Urban Design between South China University of Technology and Politecnico di Torino. He was the scientific coordinator of the winning team at S olar Decathlon China 2018.

Edoardo Bruno, Ph.D. in Architecture, History, and Project, is an adjunct professor of Architecture and Urban Design at the Department of Architecture and Design at Politecnico di Torino. Since 2015, he has been on-site manager of the South China-Torino Lab, a joint research center between Politecnico di Torino and South China University of Technology. He was the executive curator of the Eyes of the City exhibition organized for the 19th Bi-City Shenzhen Biennale of Urbanism/ Architecture, an extension of his research interests on architectural design in contemporary Chinese cities.

Gong Dong is the founder and design principal of Vector Architects. He is a professor of design studios at Tsinghua University and the Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, and was elected as a foreign member of the French Academy of Architecture and appointed as the Plym Distinguished Visiting Professor at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in 2019. From October 2021 to July 2022, he had been visiting professor at Politecnico di Torino.

Shida Liu is an architect and design researcher practicing in Hangzhou. He worked at Vector Architects from 2019 to 2021.

Leonardo Ramondetti, Ph.D. in Urban Planning and Regional Development, is a post-doctoral researcher at the Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning at Politecnico di Torino, and an adjunct professor in Urban and Regional Planning at the Department of Architecture at Università di Bologna. His field of research is contemporary urban design theory and planning culture, with a particular focus on the Chinese context. He is the author of the book The Enriched Field: Urbanising the Central Plains of China (Birkhäuser, 2022).

Founding Information

This book has been funded by the Co-Run Dual Master’s Degree program in Urban Design at South China University of Technology and Politecnico di Torino. It also benefited from the support of the research project Rescaling the Belt and Road Initiative: Innovation patterns and urbanization processes in urban China (2020–2023) carried out by Politecnico di Torino and Università di Macerata, and financed by Italian Minister of Research and University.

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Published by ORO Editions

Copyright © 2023 Mauro Berta, Edoardo Bruno, and Leonardo Ramondetti.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic, mechanical, photocopying of microfilming, recording, or otherwise (except that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the US Copyright Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from the publisher.

You must not circulate this book in any other binding or cover and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.

Authors: Mauro Berta, Edoardo Bruno, Leonardo Ramondetti

With a contribution by: Gong Dong and Shida Liu

Book Design: Leonardo Ramondetti

Translations and Proofreading: Steve Piccolo

Managing Editor: Jake Anderson

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 First Edition

ISBN: 978-1-957183-36-7

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