 Hello, everyone. Good evening. Good morning for those that are in China and in other places. Hello. Welcome, everyone, to the 2022 Fitch Colloquium. I am Jorge Oteropilos, Professor and Director of Historic Preservation at Columbia University's Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. Our colloquium tonight is virtual. It's spread around the world, but it is made possible by our being at Columbia University and in New York. And it's in light of that, that I want to start by acknowledging that we are gathered virtually here in New York in Lenapehocan, the unceded ancestral homeland of the Lenape peoples. And so I ask you to join me in acknowledging the Lenape community and their traditional territory, elders, ancestors and future generations. And then acknowledging that as a school at Columbia in New York City and in the United States as a nation, this school was founded upon the exclusions and erasures of many indigenous people. In our school, GSAP is committed to addressing the deep history of erasure of indigenous knowledge in the professions in the built environment. And so today, we are gathered to think about the built environment. And every year, the Fitch Colloquium gathers the world's leading figures to think about the built environment through the lens of preservation and to think about the key issues that are shaping the built environment and what preservation can do to address those issues. Now this year's colloquium is organized in collaboration with the Museum of Modern Art, and it will address and examine the role of preservation in China's future. We are honored by the distinguished groups of Chinese architects who will be presenting and discussing their works and ideas with us tonight. The idea for this conference really sprung out of a dialogue with Martinos Dearly, the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the Museum of Modern Art. In relation to the current exhibition that he and his team have curated, titled Reused, Renew, Recycle, Recent Architecture from China, which is on view through July 4, and I encourage all of you to go see it. I want to take this opportunity to thank Martino and the team at MOMA for this collaboration, and in particular, Evangelos Kotsiori's assistant curator at MOMA. Martino will say more about the exhibition in a minute, but I'll just say a few framing thoughts. The exhibition, of course, foregrounds the central role that preservation has taken in how Chinese architects think about the built environment in its future. And this is a dramatic shift from the way that we had become accustomed to thinking about Chinese architectural practice, primarily concerned with the creation of new cities, which from our perspective here in the United States seem to spring up almost overnight. The interest in the new seems to now have shifted to an interest in rethinking that existing built environment. Now, together with that come a number of really important questions, not only for China, but for the entire world. We come to the realization that the world is built up, that the kind of energy that we have spent to build up the world is no longer available to us to do it one more time, and that the world that we build up is falling apart and it requires a tremendous amount of care, but that we can't just simply rebuild the world because, again, we don't have that energy. So we have to think creatively about how we are going to maintain the existing built environment as it decays in a way that doesn't use up our resources and that deals with a problem of climate change. So from this perspective, new kinds of thinking are required, new ideas about what it means to be an architect, what it means to be creative, what it means to design, and to think of design, not simply as new construction, and to think of development as not simply as new construction. So it is really important for us to understand the role that China is playing in this rethinking of the built environment, and the leading figures that are going to be joining us today are going to open up a whole new set of questions for us to understand. China has taken a leading role in the world's economy, has taken a leading role in many aspects of our lives. Much of the material world that we experience as Americans is deeply enmeshed in material flows that involve China as well. And our understanding as preservationists of China has not kept pace with this leading role. Our understanding of preservation in China as Americans and I would say as in Western culture in general has been rather scant. So this is the beginning of an opportunity for us to begin to unpack the new thinking about preservation that is happening in China, and to begin to enter into a dialogue with the leading practitioners that are thinking, that are leading this turn towards preservation in the fields of the built environment. One of the things that is striking about the work that we're going to see in the colloquium is the way in which preservation has been harnessed as a creative act, as a rethinking about creativity. And that of course ties very much to the way that we at Columbia think about preservation. Preservation is a creative act for us. We understand it as a way to rethink the role of the past in contemporary culture in contemporary society. And we think of the built environment as both a material and a social reality. And so in the same breath, the built environment for us is a material and a social reality. And so every act of preservation from our perspective at Columbia is a sociopolitical and a cultural act. And so it's in that light that we want to really think about the work that we're going to see. And to discuss it in probe its implications, both environmental in terms of the culture, the politics that they manifest aesthetically. Because in the end, preservation lands up in the world and has a physical aesthetic reality and impresses us with that aesthetic reality as human beings. And so experience will be one of the things we will be discussing today. Now the experience of this particular conference today is going to be very different than most conferences that we've held most Fitch colloquia. Most Fitch colloquia have been one day they've been one full day. This is our first sleepover Fitch colloquium because we're going to be having an evening session, which starts today. Then we're all in America at least we're all going to go to bed and then we're going to wake up and tomorrow morning at 9am will be the next part of the Fitch colloquium so it's kind of exciting to think that we will have the opportunity to reflect on this first session and then and then have the second session tomorrow. I have to say that one of the pleasures of organizing this conference apart from the collaboration with Martino Evangelos and the MoMA team has been the role of our own students at Columbia University and helping to organize it the way that they've really leaned in to help us identify the key leading figures in China that are working on preservation. Some of them are part of the show at MoMA and others are not and others have been identified by our students. I have to say that we are just so fortunate at Columbia to have some of the most dynamic, creative and intelligent Chinese students so committed to this building bridges across cultures and across China and the United States in particular. And so I want to take a moment to thank them because this conference was really made possible in many ways by them and the conversations we had in the suggestions that they made. They are amazing and we are just really indebted to them they will be participating in the discussion afterwards. The format of our conference is going to be a series of presentations, followed by a conversation the first of the two will be moderated by Martino and the second tomorrow I will moderate. I want to finish by thanking Dean Weiping Wu for her support. She herself embodies that bridge between China and the United States and her work in scholarship. And I also want to thank Sarah Grace Godwin, Program Manager for Historic Preservation for all the work that she has done to make sure that this conference is runs smoothly, as well as the GSAP events team, which is just unbelievable. From Stefan Butiker to Lucy Kresbash and everybody else on the team. So thank you all. So without further ado, I would like to turn the virtual podium over to Martino Stierli, who will be moderating the first session. And I want to thank you, Martino, and thank you all for joining us tonight. Looking forward to the event. Yes, thank you so much Jorge for this wonderful introduction and obviously also for the opportunity to collaborate on this event. And you were the one who reached out to us and as suggested this after having seen the exhibition currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art and so we're very thrilled to be able to co host this event. So thank you for your spirit and for, you know, your enthusiasm in making this possible. I want to thank your team and in particular Sarah Grace Godwin and the whole GSAP team who are working behind the scenes to make this a successful event. Of course, I also want to thank the speakers tonight that whom I'm going to introduce in just one moment. And finally, I would also like to thank Evangelo Scotsioris, who has been the calculator of this exhibition here at MoMA and whose contribution was equally seminal in making this a success. I wanted to start with sharing just a few images of the ongoing exhibition in the ground floor of the Museum of Modern Art. I'm suspecting that many of you who are based in New York have seen the exhibition already. If you have not, you still have a chance to see it until early July, as Jorge was mentioning. I suspect equally that those of you who are based in China have not yet had a chance to see the exhibition so I'm hoping that these three images that we have assembled for tonight will, you know, in a way substitute a little for an actual visit. Reuse, renew, recycle recent architecture from China and you're seeing here the title wall of the exhibition. And I think tries to rethink what contemporary architecture is and Jorge was already mentioning that we generally understand contemporary architecture something new starting from scratch, creating new buildings. In that sense, perhaps as something that is antithetical to the notion of preservation. And what we were trying to do in this exhibition was to highlight an emerging generation of practitioners in China who are actually I think trying to bridge the gap between contemporary architecture on the one hand and preservation in the other. I really innovative, a variety of innovative approaches differing approaches to deal with their pre existing urban environment with the reuse of pre existing materials or buildings with the adaptive reuse with the recycling of building materials and so on and so forth. And for our exhibition we have coined this idea of, you know, sustainability as not just something that is related to ecology, which of course is very, very important, but that the idea of sustainability and that it's shared by this group of architects or by this organization of architects really relates to questions of cultural and social sustainability, which directly relate back to I think the notion of preservation that was outlining these remarks. And of course we think that all these three categories the ecological to cultural and social have to be considered holistically. And we also believe that the project in our exhibition speak to this moralistic understanding of what sustainability perhaps could and should be thought of. So here is a look into the gallery looking back to the, to the entrance wall in the far right you see actually here in the foreground on the right project by Philip John who's going to be one of the speakers, as well as a couple of other projects by various architects we're not going to hear from tonight, but then as we turn to the left, we see here another installation in you that shows us on the left the wall dedicated to the bamboo theater. This is by Chutian Tian, whom we're going to hear from in an instance and a little further to the left, unfortunately out of you here would be a project by Sean who is going to be our first speaker tonight so I'm very happy to say that all the speakers of our first panel tonight are actually presented in our exhibition. So with that, I would like to start and introduce all the three speakers at once so I will make this introduction and then pass the presentation to the three speakers or first speaker tonight is Jean. He's the founder of the award winning architectural office, Zao standard architecture founded in 2001 is a graduate from the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Tsing Shui University in Beijing. The work of Zao standard architecture spans planning architecture landscape and product design. So it was designed for the micro junior project was praised for its views on conservation and adaptive reuse of a historical Tom courtyard in the center of Beijing. And likewise, he's who Tom is his children library and art center was the recipient of the 2016 outcome award. Sean Co's work has been featured at the Venice architecture biennial, the mark Vienna, the dam in Frankfurt, I this gallery in Berlin, the V&A in London and MoMA among other things. The book Tom metabolism was just published with Architangle in Berlin and I'm holding a copy here and I would highly recommend reading for further information on his work. The second speaker tonight will be Shu Tian Tian. And she is the founder of DNA architecture design and architecture in and located in Berlin. She holds a B arc from Jinghua University in Beijing and then a mark in urban design from Harvard GST. Her practice seeks to distill architecture down to its fundamental elements, or what she calls the DNA of building practice. Her work was awarded the WA China architecture award in 2006. The architectural league of New York's young architects award by the architectural league in 2008, and the Moira Gamble, Gamble price for an emerging architect in 2019. Her long term work in Songyang County is what she calls architecture architectural acupunctures has drawn international praise and is currently featured in the MoMA exhibition and also here too we have a recent publication by park books that I would highly recommend in this connection. And then last but not least our third speaker for tonight is Philip Yuan. Philip Yuan is the founder of Archie Union architects and architectural practice based in Shanghai. Architecture Union combines traditional Chinese culture and digital construction processes into a practice he labels digital tectonics, a term that in capital and encapsulates the binding of ecology, technology and craftsmanship. The work of Archie Union architects has been exhibited in venues in events such as the Venice Architecture Biennial, the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the Hong Kong Biennial, the Triennial of Milan, and many more international venues in recent years. Philip is a professor of architecture at Tongji University in Shanghai and is the author editor and translator of more than 20 volumes, including computational design and digital fabrication both with me leech and collaborative laboratory works of Archie Union and Fab Union. Philip Yuan was the 2019 to 2020 John Thomas Jefferson visiting professor of architecture at the University of Virginia School of architecture. Wonderful. And so with that I would like to for Shanko to come to us and start his presentation. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you, Martino and Hogi. It's a great pleasure to join this colloquium. The short talk will be titled Hutong Metabolism. Same as the book that Martino has just show. I'm going to show mainly the micro your project. In the meantime, I'm going to also quickly flip through the images of the of the micro Hutong which was at exhibition in MoMA and a few other renovation projects of the Hutong in the Mike. Hutongs in Beijing the traditional. Sorry, I'm trying to. Okay. The traditional courtyard and alley system of urban dwelling that is the most essential part of the city. It's been captured at the center of the battleground between development conservation and revitalization in the past decade. After two decades of redevelopment frenzy in the old city of Beijing, the Hutongs are on the verge of being either completely erased to make space for office towers apartment and shopping malls. Or disfigured by kitchen renovations that fake images of a nostalgic past. The subtle complexity of the Hutongs as authentic contemporary urban spaces have been overlooked by both advocates of tabula of tabula rasa redevelopment and by the defenders of historical restoration. In either case, the operation involves the relentless exodus of Hutongs traditional dollars, resulting in the gradual disappearance of ethnic diversities in the Hutong communities and a rapid diminishing of Hutongs traditional cultures. Here you see a few images that we took in 2016 right in the center of Beijing near near the Fibidine city. The Hutong metabolism metabolism series aims to explore alternative perspectives of looking at Hutongs and their problems to consider them as living organisms. To study them both as micro scale, macro scale infrastructures and in micro scale units to respond to the problems of both historic and futuristic thinking. And to explore the potential of Hutongs and core charts as generator of communal spaces and catalyst of social interaction. So the first project actually the main project I'm going to show is micro yard children's library. Here shows the location of them of the project. I'm going to do the timing. Sorry. This is a typical quiet Hutong that is really just within 1000 meters distance from the Fibidine city in the southwest side of the city. So this is the existing condition. It was a typical that's how you are what we call a big messy court chart shown on the map of the left. And what happens in 99% of the of the conservation practice is to clean everything like shown in the right hand plan. Erasing the contemporary urban history in the past that happened, or the residents build up in the past six decades, six to seven decades. So, our question was to see if it's possible not to erase them, but really to recognize the contemporary layers and contemporary urban history that was really records the lives of residents. In the past six, seven decades in the urban center, which is typical of almost every core chart in and who don't core charts in the center of the city. And here you see we proposed small inserted concrete children's library on the left and redesign and renovate and reuse some of the structures in the middle and in the right to make a small art gallery and a living studio and art studio on the, on the back. So, yeah, this shows how the, the eight square, six square meter art pavilion that wraps around the big tree and providing access for children to go to the to the roof and get close to the tree and the inserted library. And, of course, we used recycled bricks and for the walls and pavements. And later, I'm going to talk about the concrete that we use for the, for the inserted children's library from inside of the small inserted space. We tested and experimented on adding a Chinese ink in the concrete to make it match better. The surroundings of the great brick in the who tomes. Yeah, here. It was actually we failed in the test in the experiment so that the ink was not even but it came out quite nice in a way it immediately cast the space back into into the background. I'm just going to flip through quickly the, the images. So by inserting this, this built concrete space carefully under the existing wooden structure. It creates interesting dialogue between the existing and the new, which is, of course, always the focus. It's an important theme in terms of architecture. When we come to the, the issues of renovation and renewal. And of course, the proposed program we spend a lot of time debating what is the most appropriate program. We could introduce to the who tone. In this case, the, the space is proposed to not as a private space, rather it's, it has a public program that welcomed kids in the neighborhood to use it always. And it's always free of charge. The details were designed in a very careful way like we are renovating a Western cathedral with you see the cutter and cover with copper and all this. This is the bigger room of the, it was a two third of a former temple that we propose to use it as a multifunctional space as a dancing studio and, and there has been, there have been over 60 events before the pandemic started the Halloween party. So this first project was really dealing with introducing public programs to the who tone to the core charts and making it a bit more public and providing the much needed public space to serve the residents. And also recognizing contemporary urban history layers of contemporary urban history, instead of wiping them out. And this is, this is some pictures. We did the mock up we brought a mock up one to one to Venice Biennale. The second project really a micro who tone which is on display in in MoMA currently is really dealing with how to create desirable space within extremely limited area in urban center. This is about just 40 square meters. So that the aim is to experiment of how to create five rooms and a core chart within 40 square meters. Again, concrete with Chinese ink. And basically flip through. So, so this is the second issue we are interested in how to create desirable space for living within extremely limited boundaries. The third, of course, a recycled materials collected right in the who tone was used for the facade. So this is the third project. I wouldn't talk in detail about the design but one thing is very important. The third issue we are we are concerned with is really about its common to all the old city renovation is about the toilets, the amenities. So we did a survey and then it came out that one thing that is desperately needed for all who tone residence is a proper toilet and shower and kitchen. So we designed we spent a year and a half designing and developing this manufacturable functional module which is two meter by two meter. And it's as toilet shower kitchen, dry wash machine dry machine and and the king size bed on top. This this was intended not just for the who tone but intended for all old city renovations and possibly even in, in remote areas and countryside. We've been developing the steel constantly and the last one I flipped through quickly is the is the social housing. We started and finished it during the pandemic. It is to create a dozen rooms units for people to live and each house each unit is only about 15 square meters and within inserted toilets and shower etc. We're further developing now even even smaller toilet shower modules and hopefully could be used in our Yuan Yang terrace fields village renewal and conservation projects. And here's this who told metabolism book published by Archie Tango and together with Aga conward. And thanks to Martino also wrote very important article inside. And also this catalog of our exhibition. That took place in Berlin. My team that this was a few years ago. Thank you. This is my the end of the presentation. I think I've kept the time. Okay. Thank you, Martin. Thank you so much chunk. In fact, you're an overachiever. I think you could have spent a few more minutes but we'll definitely come back to your presentation. If you wouldn't mind stop sharing your screen and we can then move onward right to our second speaker should jump down before we do so however, I would like to remind our audience to please start typing in your questions. Thank you to the Q&A box at the lower right of your screen. I will be reviewing those and we'll come back to your questions. After the three presentations before you received a few questions but please feel free to bring up your questions as they occur to you and we'll come back to them. So thank you so much and welcome. Thanks to Rich Clokey on today I'm going to share our Songyan story which is the work we have been done in the past eight years in Songyan County, a typical agricultural county in China. And in this process architecture has become the strategy to revive rural villages and also to build up an interaction and circulation between the villages and the county urban center. So here architecture is not only to preserve the vernacular building methods and language but also helps to preserve local communities and life. And usually in this method we call it architecture acupuncture and small scale public program is introduced into each village according to its context and heritage and to restore the village identity and eventually is built up this mapping system in the county of Songyan. So the first project we started in the first village project was this in Pingtian village, a very typical mountain village, and we propose to preserve the cluster of abandoned vacant houses at the entrance of the village to work with renovation. This is to preserve the very original fabric of this ancient village. So the building envelope keeps intact and we mostly work with the interior or reorganize open up the space and reorganize into the space into different functions to accommodate different programs. And the construction was done by the local skilled workers local villagers with traditional method tenant and mortise wooden structure, which is very easy to assemble in the onsite and was done in the whole construction was done, finished in just a few months, less than five months. That's the overall profile maintain the original way. And all the spaces are reused for different functions, public programs. For example, this is a artist studio with fabric dying artists art programs. The second floor used to be storage room can be converted into a room for homestay business and other details are done in a very local traditional methods and look at all these joints or the wooden nails are done by local craftsmen. And this has also become a very popular cultural and educational program in the region. So very often a Chinese village an ancient Chinese village is a large family claim with one or a few surnames. It's very traditional to respect their ancestors as the pride and honor has been has become the inspiration for us to work in this one village. This used to be a most glorious village, but it's in ancient time but it's surrounded by modern factory. Since the 90s. The discovery of Wang Jing, the imperial scholar from Ming Dynasty, but also one of the three most famous historical figures in Songyang County. Wang Jing from originally from this village has bring the motivation and also the sense of pride and honor to all the villages to the whole community. This new memorial hall for dedicated to this and sister Wang Jing is programmed at the center of this village facing the original ones ancestral temple. And that's the new memorial hall. The building is mapping with the village fabric to compose this volume into different compartments of different chapters. And here we work with local building material and effort. This ram ram earth wall is done by the local villages and the structural system is the concrete bearing wall system, just like the other modern houses around. The reason to work with both ancient and modern material or technique is to create a dialogue with the neighbors. Either ancient is the traditional or modern contemporary. The building built up this bridge or with this ancestral to merge with its context. And with this mapping of the fabric, and the building has 17 corners for these 17 corners are structural corners and as well as memorial corners. This corner is lit from top with stone carving statue indicating the moment of a specific moment of an awarding lifetime. All these stone carving are done by the factory just outside of the village. And all these moments were on these memorial corners, creating a lifetime indicating the life story of and sister Wang Jing. I like the traditional Chinese courtyard buildings with the void in the center open to the sky. Here the composition of this space is the is rather the reverse way. We are focusing on the corners. Introducing light and bodies and memorial content. And the corners are often less functional and often ignored. So here we want to take all the corners as the memorial stage to create a temple. We also want to create an atmosphere at the same time also to free up the central space, the main space for different just to accommodate different activities or functions for the village community. We also worked with Haka indenture and tradition indenture history in Shizam Haka village as the cultural and historical heritage and the indenture system is basically the legal system to Haka society almost as a foundation to Haka society. In this case, we have been working with local masonry, we were able to revive this masonry technique in actually, which is long lost building technique in the region. And we took this, this museum as the opportunity to with three skilled workers, masonry workers experts they were able to train over dozen young workers after this construction. So the building is as a background to the village connecting the mountain. So this masonry, this local masonry technique has become very strong dialect, or the main very dominant characteristic in the space. So in this case, we preserve the small creek, original creek on site running from the mountain to the village, and with the water, the sound of water, the mist from skylight, and also the breeze passing through the space. This elements become the accents to soften up this intensity by this masonry material and form. In this story, we have a chapter dedicated to real economy, which is based on the local agricultural production or heritage, which we think, which we consider as also as the tangible heritage in each village. And these also help to build up a local economic circulation masonry on county. So the first project is a renovation and expansion of abandoned oil factory at the entrance at the sunken site at the entrance of the village. The original chameleon oil workshop is a historical building with over 100 years of history. So the revive of this oil production program is to re-activate this workshop as a historical building, but also to introduce the production as an intangible cultural heritage from Hong Kong village to the visitors. So, in other words, it's also to showcase this agricultural and cultural heritage as a life museum. In this case, the original workshop is embedded by our new expansion, almost creating a labyrinth circulation in a space to discover when you finally arrive at the center. And all the structure is again the traditional tendon and mortise wooden structure. And for the material, we were able to collect the pebbles from the creek and just make the walls with the pebbles cut in half. And it's creating this contrast between the historical rampage for workshop with this new expansion space. The joint indicates that the original workshop is really embedded at the center of this whole compound. And when you arrive at this center after this circular roots, you discover this production space with all the traditional wooden machinery tools made by wood and stone operated by local villagers. And building the original workshop, this historical workshop kept everything in its original way. We only replace the skylight with roof tiles, some of the roof tiles into the local glass tiles to bring in the light into the space and also to emphasize this atmosphere. So in this Xun village is well known for its production of brown sugar in the winter season, and this is rather a modern factory that the villagers were able to build their multiple layers, stories, houses, modern houses. So in this village the production of brown sugar is the element to introduce to restore the village cultural identity. Similar to oil production, the production of brown sugar itself is a life performance. And with this new factory, we were able to establish a religious union to integrate all these individual family workshops and operating this new factory. All these working stations are operated by different individual family workshops, and they're lining up with the building structure and structure with them and skylights. So these are working as a background pattern for the movement and emotions by these cooking masters. So the whole production, the main production space is conceived as a central stage. In a way, we took this, the production, agricultural production as a, we think this is a very modern concept of performance, and the production is running 24 hours in a day so the lighting is also treated as a stage lighting. And the space could also be used as a village center, a cultural space during non-production season. Another village, Taijai, is known for its best tofu in region, and in this case the new tofu factory is built at the entrance of this village next to a large, next to this historical building and a large scale in the village. And the building sits on an existing terraced site. Other programs are divided into just by the procedure of traditional way of making tofu from preparation to this grinding compartment. And then boiling compartment and deep frying at the entrance to cooling compartment. So this is a, again, it's also like a shared kitchen for the village family workshops to integrate all these family workshops as the shareholders to operate this factory. But the production procedures are also opening up to the visitors as a learning educational program. And that's the sequence of traditional way of making tofu stretching along this slope, like long scroll painting, and opening up and inviting the visitors to observe this intangible cultural heritage from Taijai village. That's the walkway parallel to the production sequence, and it's open to the public, open to the villagers who are often taking this as just a leisure lunch as an open pavilion. So all these production factories worked with a social structure to integrate the individual village family workshops into a collective economic entity. So in next, the last project I would like to introduce the housing project in Shang Tian village which has over 600 years but has been left almost vacant as a hollow village. And with this, we consider this is a experiment after a collaboration with local village communities and with the local government. So the transformation of this Shang Tian village is to convert all these abandoned vacant houses into homestay business and other cultural leisure programs to invite to open up to the city residents to to visitors, as well as to providing this employment opportunities for the local villages and to attract young villages returning home. So the renovation of these houses and the overall village fabric is done by very careful and minimal intervention of approaches. So all these buildings maintained its original envelope to as to preserve the memory of the village. And again this construction is done by the locals here workers with the three main historical buildings are the public cultural space open as a public platform. And that's the renovation again in the inside the house, we started to reorganize the space and work with to accommodate modern living space or functions, which is working as a in this in the house it's working as a contrast with the original building texture. It's a contrast between new and old. At the same time this project, while the preservation on the building is rather minimal and very careful and sensitive approach. But the transformation of the village is rather innovative social design to establish a collective hybrid collective economic entity to engage other villagers in this in this operation. So we have four, three villagers unions and the villagers can participate with their vacant house vacant farmland or equity and also village collective as a collective participants and then the this entity is also sponsored by the town and county government. So this is the structure economic structure to protect to preserve the basic interest of these villages, most important to preserve their ownership on their house houses and comments. So the whole operation of this champion village preserve the very authentic rural country village life, which has also become a attraction for the urban residents. It engages with this social design to inspire the local village communities and also to introduce rural village life to our urban visitors. That's it for my talk today. And I will keep the floor to Philippian. Thank you. Thank you. And on to Philip. Can you see the screen. It's all good. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks invitation from my Tino, you create the exhibition, and it's great honor for me to secondly I think second time to make presentation, make the lecture to Columbia University. And today I would like to address the theme through the topic of machine and memory, we're crafting the noses just in China. And nowadays, with the development of increasing sophisticated digital tools, including design tools, formation, optimization iteration, or fabrication tools from robotic platform to artificial intelligence. And now achieve different kind of approach to the production mass production process of architecture away from the tradition crafts and the industry in industrialization. And the relationship between the human and nature has been changed to the post human race process social process, because technology and turning to be the second factor between the human and nature. So, over the past few years, nearly can we set up a platform digital futures and yearly we organize workshops and conference and make a lot of discussions and promotions for the digital tools in architecture. So the machines right now becomes extension of human being. So which is really important inference the design, the thinking process design process and construction process. The, the architects and material material process has been totally changed from from the, the actual machine from the human thinking to the collaboration between the human and tools, which is the extension of the human skills to re understand the nature and re understand the environment and try to readdress the human location in the on the planet. So keep this in mind, and we can interpret materials from two perspective in contemporary context context. On the one hand, digital technology has been deeply embedded in the architecture production today, establish an informational process from design to fabrication. In this way, architecture is not only designed by human in correlation with the material properties and energetic condition, but also process the characteristic of digital information from those automatic machine machines. So the information iteration process, we can be able to drive materials flows into the certain optimization states, which can keep us make a really good re understanding from the, the, the geometry perspective from the cultural perspective and also from the social perspective. So, and I think I would like to address the, the two projects I designed several years ago to analyze how we try to achieve the new tools, which can engage into the material intelligence and also at same time to benefit at same time to balance the social culture environment involvement in the project. So this is a machine I want to highlight we develop a setup established in 2015. And which is the robotic platform with 18 axis, which is the abstract machine for future digital factory, located in Shanghai, and actually on this platform with crafting robotics and try to achieve different kind of which can have correlation, not only to technology but also to the social production process. And this is one of the project we, we, we done several years ago and also the mock up was expect in and plus Hong Kong, and which is re fabricate and the breaks and could be able to understand the rhythm and the aesthetics of the local breaks. And also we develop some onsite in situ robotics which also means we do not only design the buildings but also we design the tools. The onsite robotics can achieve more than five crossmanship including the timber crossmanship and 3D printing essential and can move into the site and construct different buildings. So, take one example from our workshop robotic commentary, which is the culture oriented would structure design and fabrication research. In the exhibition, you can see all the components is prefabricate and which could be located by the reciprocal structure efficient efficient based system structure system and also all the details has been changed one by one. So we're crafting robotics and try to, to introduce the, the, the, the tools and collaborate with the designers and the company tree could be achieved not only by the, the company tree but also to the after students. So by increment this scenarios, and we introduce one of our project, which is located in strength province. We designed 2017. And so the project locating the tradition local village. And which is the panda is from this country. And also, the first time I was invited to visit site and take a great impression for the environment surroundings we can smell the greenness and also the site and also including different kind of environment. So we tried to try to invite me to design the committee center and also the eight BNB hotels, and the villagers changed be the stakeholder and try to make a new development understanding of how to engage their lives to the modern life. In our design, I think we introduced a new technology including the timber topping tree. And also we introduced the tradition crops including the bamboo viewing the tiles. So this is the eight. Village eight BNB and village so actually the totally we have six project, which was designed constructed in from 2017 to 2018 two years. And today I have time to introduce two of them the in bamboo community center and also the BNB on the left. Also have some other programs including the use auto camps and also the expression craftsman for the local crossbench and essential. So, this is the BNB which located on the consequence side and the several big trees. And we try to introduce the tradition tiles, and which standing on the timber roof system and the villagers very familiar with the material but actually we, we, we, we actually it's possible to introduce this the light into the middle courtyard of this, the small BNB house, and keep the original trees. So this is the committee center which standing on the on the rose on the on the roadside and the project we gave it is in bamboo we can see through the allotments the bamboos, and which is the typical limpan styles screenery in in Chengdu. And although the geometry system actually changed actually the material and I think which came to keep the memory of the local villages, what is the community center in the in the neighborhood. So this is the style roofs and also increasing the bamboo forest in the neighborhood. So this is models showing the technology relationship how we design the roof system and exhibit in in Venice Benelli, and this model also was collected right now in Hong Kong and plus. And this is the steel and and and the timber integrate structure system. And the geometry actually is a double curvature loop, which is together, but actually from outside from facade system is really tradition as the horizontal cantilever and transparent under the roof, and showing the embrace the people can embrace in the surrounding environment, and the smell the air and actually which the windows could be totally open and that is a typical style in living style in Chengdu. So, but it's difficult to really how to construct this kind of curvature in the very efficient time. So you can see all the column beam system was category into different types, but all the drawings are different because the height of the roof system. So we custom all the drawings and very efficiently moving this kind of robotics and custom all the drawings for the for the timber system. So this is the joint system. And this we name is like the digital teams for the optimization process and the fabrication process. And also we develop and the tools on the robotics factors how to how to how to fabricate the the curvature beam. So the the detail drawings for the project is not the plans sections detail drawings but this kind of scripts to a few robots, which is a software we develop from the team, which can, which can set up the connection from the Rhino grasshopper to the robotic machine. The guard house for the for the entry and actually this is was the genre system is controlled by the the the bamboo and the the surface also leaving by the local tradition labor. So the people stand in middle, who is the master craft, local crafts craftsman craftsman in the village and he he was 68 years old at that time. I asked him, and he why you're still working on the side, he told me, without his guiding the young generation, don't understand how to be being such kind such a big skill by bamboo. So you can show you can see, and it's really important to keep the linkage from the different generation to learning from their daddy and their parents, and to try to to keep this tradition moving on. And also, during the construction and process we can see when the greenery the landscape was printed. The most of the workers are the females. So I asked one of them, why your husband and your sons coming to working on site and they told me, and all of them moving to the big city. So it's kind of a special phenomenon. The young generation or the the main labor, all moving to the big city. So the urbanization actually make this kind of hollow phenomenon in China. So it's really important to how to attract the people coming back how to introduce the new technology and the new industry to rethinking on the mass production in the rural area of China. Not just on the single building but on how to construct building how to reorganize the social productive process. So this is the after construction of the projects we should this video in 2018, but actually, two months ago I visit back and the village surroundings, change a lot because local people make different development. So I think it's important for the future not just to give them a beautiful building a house, but maybe we should be thinking of how to teach them how to establish the new industry for the social productive process in architecture for the rural area of China. Okay, and based on the time limits I introduced another project. The inkstone and lean pan community center which is just five kilos away from the, the in bamboo project and also in the same county. So this project also make a lot of practice and demos and to to implement the robotic timber preparation and the brick mansion also three different as well. So this is the opening project and make a speech, and, and, and also at that time I teach a group of MIT students. And also we make a lecture on site in this building with a new jacquan and shining and with interesting discussion on how to construct this building in the rural area of China. So this is a design process, you can see the design not just form the geometry but also we including the optimization, the efficiency, and how to understand the structure system and the construction details of the project. So this is the optimization process to optimize the structure and timbers and make it's really efficient in the special earth, earth, earthquake era of Chengdu to construct the big cantilever for the roof system. So we designed is this beam, which is standing on the top and as actually the most big cantilever is maximum is like six, six meters. So the beam is have a timber and still integrate joints and try to make the main beam cantilever learning from the tradition but actually it's more than the tradition and based on the integrated structure system. So this is the, the wood beam and green and laminate process for the structures, and also the joints, the same fabrication as well. So this is the onsite work you can see it is a steel structure and wooden timber beams integrate structure system. So in terms of construction also the facade, the skin is the prefab fabricate robotic fabricate bricks components by components, and also the break is, we collect the recycle bricks and try to make them recycle use on the facade by the location actually is parametric design and located as a special relationship to each other. So this is the foggy screen we should on the impact, which is a typical screen array in Sichuan and the bamboo forest and the farming land, and the water is integrate and flowing together so the building. Standing in the middle of the link pan and also we designed a circulation, which coming to be the farmers market in the weekend, and the farmers local people pathing through this building. So the second nation itself the infrastructure itself changing to be the landscape. So this is the way we try to analyze our understanding the screen tradition culture in China. So this is the sunny and sunny day for the project. Different perspective. So different circulation was integrated for the multifunctional open space for the local villagers organize different events in this building. So also the farming land surrounding the allotments from parents. So this is also changing to be another special local space different seasons. Here you can see one in the spring and in the spring and the landscape change to be extremely beautiful and also can see the the big prefabricate facade and also the big cantilever roof system. Collecting water falling down and to the middle courtyard. And also we introduce different different crafts into the projects including the right image, the order furnitures and the initial walls internal walls in walls in the in the building was really printed by the recycled friendly plastics, modified plastics. So okay, I would like to finish my lecture by the small video. And this video was also was expected in Venice Bernadette last year. Okay, thank you. Thanks for your attention. Thank you so much Philip and thank you all three speakers for three really truly amazing and inspirational presentations was just extraordinary work is a thrill to you know see speak about these and see these beautiful images that really touch so many of us. We have a very large number of questions and we have only 30 minutes left so I will try to make some groupings and I'll ask all of the speakers to try to keep your answers as brief as possible so we can try to get as many answers as possible. We received a few questions, particularly for Jean-Cœur and Chutian-Tian asking who funded these projects, who is the client and Jean-Cœur would you like to start and then baby Chutian-Tian. Yes. This is really a good critical question I was typing answers already during Philip's presentation. The first two projects, MicroUR, Children's Library and MicroHutong were both funded among the funds raised myself with my friends. So it's basically initiated by ourselves because it's, you know, my, I talked about it in the in the Hutong metabolism book with the conversation with Nandita Korea was, it's really about action because in Beijing in China we've been talking about this alternative way of old city renewal for decades. And because nobody believed that any alternative way is possible. So about 2012, after two years of study, we decided to say, okay, we just going to raise our fund and do something in real. And the two, the co-living court chart and the social housing was funded by the government. We were commissioned after they saw our build projects. So, yes, that's the lesson. This is what I learned from the Indian architect, Charles Correa. You can't stand by just watch in this, in the fact that we see problems we have to, architects have to take actions. I think this also is something we learned ourselves, because most of the time architecture and architects has become a passive kind of profession, but in dealing with urban issues, I think it's very critical for us to initiate projects ourselves and just do it with whatever resource we could do for ourselves. I think Tiantian also did a lot of these projects. I will let Tiantian to explain herself. The other project we've done in Songyan, they are public funded, but also in a collective way. It's also quite innovative financial economic structure behind all these projects. There are subsidies coming from cultural departments from the province and also subsidy coming from maybe cultural or tourism, agricultural. Part of the funding is also from Village Collective Money. This whole Songyan story, to me, it's a social structure. It's a social design system. So the funding is, in a way, when you are working in the rural context, you have to find a way to receive funding, whether the project applies to culture or applied to agriculture, financial requirements. Excellent. I actually have a follow up question for you, Tiantian, from an anonymous attendee asking, if you could explain how the local community was involved in the decision making process and if the overall business progressively became financially sustainable or if it still depends on the government funds? All of these projects engage the communications with the local village communities from the very beginning to discuss their, what is the most essential to them? For example, and sister or something, or even the brown sugar production, total production, whatever that they are proud of. And we work with that content. And the construction is also done by the local villagers. And to use, most of the projects are using the local building method and material. And this is also strategic to involve, engage everybody into this procedure. Well, also, considering the tight budget on each project. So in a way, I would say this is very pragmatic structure that to engage all the communities. So some of the projects are self-sustainable and financially, like the Shantien village has been doing quite well, even in the pandemic. But some of the project, like the cultural project. Well, I would say that and all these cultural project, including the ancestors hall and also the Hakka indenture museum, the buildings are conceived as low maintenance operation. So it's just, you don't really pay much of the cost to maintain the buildings, for example, air conditioning or just a maintenance staffing. All these things are eliminated in the project. And just to, and it also, that's the way, that's the local way I'm dealing with property and sisters halls in every village. Excellent. Another question for you, Tian Tian. I'm sorry if I mispronouncing your name. The question relating the preservation heritage status, do these villages receive an official status as historic cultural village and do such kind of reuse renovation program. We already answered that are they supported by the local government. Yes. So the question is, you know, do they receive some kind of heritage status. The villages, some of the villages are entitled as the traditional village by the Chinese Ministry of Housing and Construction. So the traditional villages will receive funding for preservation and also coming with regulations on any of the new additions or construction happening in the village. But for those, none Chinese, a non traditional village like some of the villages are rather modern. For example, the Xin village with the brown sugar, and it's rather a more contemporary and looking. But in this village, the, the brown sugar workers are entitled as the brown sugar masters as the brown sugar production is the intention entitled with the intangible heritage cultural heritage by the local county government. So all these workers become the masters the celebrities in the village. It's incredible actually. Back to Beijing to the who tong says two questions for you junk relating to the materiality one was about why concrete, and another one by rule and, you know, are these spaces livable in the hotel project I think the person is asking about the micro hostel and so I think you may want to say something to that also. The concrete question is very good one it we had choices of either steel reinforcement or concrete reinforcement due to the contemporary seismic requirements, coding of the city because none of these traditional wooden brick structures in the old city were even seismically stable for earthquake as required here in Beijing so when we have to apply for approval official approval of the planning Bureau, then we either have to reinforce it with steel frame or with concrete frame. That's one of the reason. Of course, the other reason is we wanted to experiment ourselves this concrete added with Chinese ink to to see a new material that could be working subtly with the great break environment and creating a good dialogue between the existing structure between the existing and the new in a subtle way so when you first see it you it doesn't jump out as very loudly. Yes, as I talked before that in the old city it's very easy to shout out, but you know, but to how to make recognize what contemporary presence at the same time keeping it quiet as a dialogue. So, so that was the experiment that we have been developing, of course that this doesn't exclude the careful maintenance of the wooden structure of replacing some of the wooden beams and reinforcing the wooden columns. As as the typical conservation projects in the West would do. So, so this concrete it was deliberately added as a as a new contemporary layer, but, but this is not ordinary concrete it was was subtly tuned to to to work with the existing background. Excellent you've already actually answered another question by Lucy young was actually asking specifically asking about the maintenance of the existing wood buildings if there was any effort and thinking going into that so we can say this was answered. So, another question for you, Jean could by Peter Siegandale are asking how many who tongues are actually left in Beijing, and are they are official policy policies, when you sit me municipal for example that effectively protect them and encourage their reviews. You know, by, by the year of 2000 and 2001, you know, at that, at that time we have about eight even 8590% of the who tones in the old city war left, but the destruction really happened in the past two decades. So all the because there was when when the economy start to rocket up in the old in in in Beijing in China so there was there was a policy, which was clearly not correct of putting development in as the precondition of conservation. But this has been reverted in the past five years. So, when we started to work on it around 2010, there was about 30% of the old who tone areas were still left. It was shown in one of our my slides in the first few pages of the existing area but within this. And there's only 17% were strictly conserved area. And the good thing is now conservation is is being put in the old city throughout China as the as the first priority. So that's the good thing but the risk is also what I talked about is it's now the conservation equals to to to facade restoration and beautification of a nostal nostalgic old look. That's still remains a problem. Thank you. We go back to some young county. There's another question for you can tell me by Lucy young and she is wondering about the revival of traditional crafts that you were invoking when you're talking about edifying a local economy. And the audience is asking will the local villagers especially those young people autonomously apply these crafts in local construction or only for the outsiders project so I think the question here is, you know is this creating a local sustainable economy or is it mainly directed towards sort of a touristic presentation of the of the economy and the livelihood. Definitely for local and sustainable for example the brown sugar is production production is done every year. It happened in the winter season, but tourism isn't the main purpose of all these projects but it does open up the assets the heritage as a valuable assets. So tourism and well I would say this is rather cultural educational tourism in in local in the region. And all these workers, I mean, with the production as a public cultural event. Increased the price of all these production. For example, the product where the price of the from sugar has increased four to five times in the past years, and also attracted you young what religious returning home and joining the production to make enough income actually better income than working as a construction site workers in cities. So this has becoming a kind of a circulation in in the in in terms of the product product, but also in terms of inspiring attracting new religious returning home. We actually have a related question about craft people for Philip, and this is a question by Geo Zhang, who is curious about the craftsman role in the digital fabrication process. Do you think they are going to be replaced by the robotic arm is high tech going to replace traditional craft. Yeah, I think as a rose, because I'm the professor at leading a very big team in Tongi and to make R&D research in the architecture, building technology. So I think we try to set up new model, which is the human machine collaborative future that is not to the pace on the robotics but maybe some other machines or softwares to box, which can give extension skills to human being. So make a lot of development based on PhD program on the building technology, including softwares and hardware robotics. I think the future is not a solo human centric design based process. The future should base on the human machine collaborative and re understanding the human and the planet and how to more environment friendly living on the planet and more efficiently or more accurately address the human beings in the nature, including the buildings and the human beings, buildings and human beings. So I think I do not want to predict if the robotics replace human labor, but I want to predict the future should be a human machine collaborative future. And we training such a big team of the future architects. I think the future architects should learning how to re understanding the environment, re understanding the choose re understanding the industry. So how to address the more ethical or reasonable practice for the future, including China including the whole work. And actually another question for you, Philip relating more specifically now to the question of preservation. And your song is asking all of your project today seem like newly constructed architecture some of them are reusing reusing original materials. I'm wondering, is it possible to use digital fabrication tools in the adaptive reuse projects, especially those additions to existing buildings. This is a very quick question. And I think I'm not expert in the preservation or conservation design. I think that's a really important to re understanding the authentic of the buildings, and how to take care of the building in the urban context. Most of my project located in the context and in my design process I consider very dedicated and carefully for the surroundings. I think including the the culture things environment and including material so and so forth. So I think most of my practice actually try to introduce the surrounding the materials and also the surrounding relationship into the, the crafting process and the construction process. I also have several projects including in Tongji I renovate the Tongji auditorium and more than 10 years ago and also on the pump Riverside also renovate tradition building. And also we in the process we should use a lot of building technology, understanding including ventilation, energy saving, all this kind of details, but maybe this kind of technology is hidden in the authentic of renovation process. I think sometimes what is absent which is presence is important to be decision by the designer. And the most important attitude is how we can friendly looking surroundings and how to friendly design the futures based on this context. Thank you. I have a couple of questions for you Philip and Lucy young is wondering relating has a question relating the volume of your projects. And she's mentioning that, you know, by implanting such a big architecture or architectural complex into the rural context, what type of influence do these projects form to the local people so the question is, what is the impact of large buildings in in the rural community And the related question by Anna Robinowitz is how involved was the local community in determining the programming design materials and what was important to preserve construction technique or a traditional building form. Okay, that's a good question. I think as to the skill, which based on the new program. Actually, the urban or the rule development China is using dramatically over the past 20 years. So I think the program is not from the designer is from actually with the communication with the local community and local government. I think the designers is important to think about the scale and the height and also how to integrate into the urban, the rule fabric. I think the skill of the buildings around 2000 square meters in the neighborhood is okay. The first impact project we have in the village we have 8086 families. The site is constructed on the two courtyard, because of people moving out so it's, it's teared down for more than five years. So the local people take away the two old buildings to courtyard so we designed to circle circles to twisting them together, which based on the tradition original site. I think we taken the skill of the building in consideration very carefully. And the second building actually which is the collaborative is OCT, which is one of the most biggest developer who focus on the rural development which is the first exhibition space for the, for the project. So I think the local surroundings are all the farming land. So that project is showing the new lifestyle or new possibility how to integrate the tradition locals, tradition local living models and events, and how to introduce this kind of events to the urban citizens so urban people. So I think the skills. Okay, that's showing the population density, the development speed and in China, which the program actually all based on the communication with the local people. So I think that's the phenomenon. What's happened over the past few years in China. And as to the, what's the second question. And the second question. Sorry, what was the second question. You know what, I forgot. We have five minutes left I have a couple more questions for Tian Tian. The first one is by Julie, who was impressed by the idea of integrating the practices of intangible cultural heritage into those places, meaning the villages in Songyang County. My question links to tourism and the ICH. So related to something we have already discussed, will the visitation negatively affect the intangible cultural heritage, leading to a staged performance. What roles can architects play to mitigate that concern if it exists. I will say the other way around, we are working on both we are focusing on the production, you know to provide a better space for production with higher standards. But at a certain time, we also open up the performance, you know to attract visitors, which is, it works with the tourism and educational tourism and it's, it's, it's not a bad thing. Because when you when the production is done was done in the family workshops, basically the family kitchen, the product couldn't fit with food certificate requirements. And so when collecting all these family workshops into a village union. First, it engages the individual villages into the market economy with a collective economic format. And second, it also improve, actually provide a open platform to, to observe but also as a kind of a request on the production workers on their daily work, would I put it this way. It's it's rather motivation. What are the requirements is actually motivation, like I said in the brown sugar cooking masters are becoming the celebrities. So they do when they're making the brown sugar. It's, it's not only a performance and they're something they're proud of. So they also want to improve the quality of the brown sugar or tofu or rice wine. So these are, we think it's just kind of all many things coming together into all these intangible cultural heritage has the ability to revive the village and to kind of bring a communication interaction between the villages and visitors. Yeah, I would like to say something about the Tintin's project because it's a very inspiring. Since we are doing some village renewal projects in Yunnan currently, I think the, the, the one of the most inspiring aspect of Tintin's projects are she always engage with production of local production, and such as factories, but those factories are not just functional, nice spaces that they're also as as community center always. So it becomes in the end as a functioning as a catalyst of both the local economy, and as interaction spaces, communal spaces for the locals, I think these this aspect is very inspiring for, you know, for ourselves, you know, currently doing countryside projects in villages. Yeah, thank you so much for clarifying that junk and I can absolutely confirm what you were just saying, having visited, having had, you know, the opportunity to visit she's so young county myself and experiencing that in person. And I'm afraid we are coming very close to the end of our session. I do want to ask one more question from the audience. And again, relate, relate into the project. Here and how do these villages keep their traditional construction skills and craftsmanship. Is there any training center or mentorship for continuing these preservation contractors so also relating to the intangible cultural heritage question we just had. Yes, there have been training programs going on simultaneously with all these production, and especially the local building construction method with younger. Actually, also the demand on renovating the local traditional houses also inspired younger villagers returning home and joining this educational program training program, organized by the local government. And they're also for the production factories. I would say that every villager in the village, the skilled workers, they have been making this at home every day. So, there were no need to further training. But it also, it's more of a kind of an educational classroom for the young visitors from other regions from the county urban center or from other villages. Yeah, thank you so much. Thank you for your wonderful presentations and for sharing your thoughts. I think we've raised a number of really very crucial questions that will continue tomorrow. The relationship of craft and technology, the question of the rural and the urban, the question of heritage and preservation with regard to new construction and so on and so forth. And with that I would like to give it back to Jorge. Thank you so much. Well, thank you, Martino. And again, thank you all for your wonderful presentations. What an inspiring evening and thank you to all the participants in the audience as well for the I don't think I've ever seen such a question and answer on fire. There's just so much, so much going on in peril so it just speaks to the amazing depth and the beauty of the work really moving project so we're just really thrilled again really honored to have your participation. We are now in the very kind of in very unique fashion going to take the longest break a conference has ever taken. We're going to take an 11 hour break, and we are going to reconvene in 11 hours. Again, some of us in China will go about our day and come back to the conference. Others will go to sleep and wake up tomorrow with a whole new ideas and questions and we'll have for more presentation so please join us back at 9am tomorrow for the continuation of the Fitch colloquium, honoring the founder of the historic preservation program James Marston Fitch and in collaboration with MoMA. So thank you all. We cannot, you know, we cannot hear the roaring clapping of the audience but you know we I do it for everyone and thanks again. Have a good day. Good evening, and we'll see you in 11 hours. Thanks again. Goodbye. Thank you. Pleasure to buy.