BUSINESS & TECH | F E AT URE
100architects: China’s Pioneers of Functional Urban Art By Sophie Steiner
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hey say architecture is about trying to make the world a little more like our dreams, and 100architects – a Shanghai-based studio that prides itself on following the convention of being unconventional – is all about that. Specializing in street architecture, urban interventions and urban beautification, 100architects aims to design and shape cities by fostering connections between people, places, nature, movement and urban form. We sat down with 100architects founder and managing director, Marcial Jesús to learn about how a 2013 gathering of friends with a creative streak evolved into a leading pioneer in the field of functional urban art within the public realm. How do you describe 100architects? 100architects is an architecture studio that doesn’t do buildings (at least not in a conventional way). We specialize in public spaces that – through our experimental design approach – aim to transform the cityscape we know today into the hyper-stimulating one we envision for tomorrow. We are a young team of international Shanghai-based architects and designers whose work lies at the intersection of place-making, street art, landscape architecture and urban interventions. Our mission is to improve our cities and the experience of residents by providing innovative and stimulating public spaces, inclusive and accessible to everyone. How has 100architects evolved since starting in 2013? We started out as a group of friends meeting after long days in the office to work on eccentric concepts for cities across the globe with zero budget nor clients asking for them. Now we are a 32 |DECEMBER 2021
team of 16 people, split by expertise across departments, dedicated fulltime to serving clients and building out proposals for cities across the globe. At the beginning, we pushed our creativity to the limit to see what we were capable of and to showcase our style to potential clients. We designed many colorful urban interventions in varying size and scope, projects that would call attention to themselves purely by being different from what one usually sees in major cities. Although we didn’t build many of these projects, we garnered a following and developed expertise, along with a robust portfolio, that helped us gain traction with our first clients. Our earliest project was in Santiago in 2014, then another in Shanghai’s Xintiandi in 2016 – both of which were temporary installations for activation of public spaces. Most of our initial projects were temporary in nature because of the experimental style of our proposals. However, now we focus more on large, permanent urban projects – or landscape architecture – and large masterplans to transform a known cityscape with enhanced creativity, colors and innovative spatial solutions. How is 100architects different than other architecture firms, in terms of projects and focus? We believe that working in the public realm is a privilege; this is where our design has the biggest impact on the largest number of people. At the same time, we believe play is the purest form of creativity. Thus, we imagine cities as playgrounds for citizens, regardless of age or social status, and our practice revolves around these core values. We consider our office an experimental lab for ingenious urban solutions, driven
by the passion of shaping the cities of tomorrow – a tomorrow full of colors, entertainment and stimulation. We make sure every project is developed with an ‘out of the box’ mentality. In fact, our clients come to 100architects only when they want something different and outstanding. They come to us when they require an injection of energy and identity into their developments, or simply when they want to catalyze social dynamics in their spaces. In a world where technology, social media and online retail are replacing and eliminating our natural meeting places, we believe that our design should explore ways to stimulate human interactions in the urban space. At the end of the day, it is human connectivity that triggers happiness, productivity, innovation and overall wellbeing. What have been some of the biggest challenges working in China, and – on the other side of the table – what has been the biggest advantage? In China, public space is such a delicate and extensive matter, not only from a design point of view but also from a sociological, cultural and political point of view. The concept of public space in China differs a lot from the way it is understood in western countries. In Chinese cities, public spaces are more like corridors – big streets and wide sidewalks. It seems like public spaces are merely gaps between buildings, extensive walkways with no public furniture to sit down, where one can only circulate from point A to point B. The Bund in Shanghai for instance, is the most well-recognized public space in the city, yet it’s essentially a wide hardscape platform on which thousands of people walk every day, admiring the colossal scale of the city.
