Like most functions in recent months, this year’s Digital FUTURES, which is held annually since 2011 at Tongji University in Shanghai, had to move online due to the pandemic. The organizers took this as an opportunity to give the event a global dimension, turning the festival into what they rightfully call the most significant worldwide event for architectural education ever staged, with a 24/7 display of workshops, lectures and panel discussions involving some of the most prominent architects and educators. Here is an overview of the festival, together with a selection of lectures from Digital FUTURES World.
Tongji University: The Latest Architecture and News
The Future of Universities, Offices and Cities: Highlights From Digital Futures 2020
Chinese Pavilion Opens With Robot-Printed 'Cloud Village' at 2018 Venice Biennale
The Chinese Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, themed "Building a Future Countryside", is endeavored to explore new technology and ideas to make better of China's rural areas. A digitally-fabricated outdoor pavilion "Cloud Village" has been set up in addition to the national exhibition at the Venetian Arsenale. The Cloud Village has a twisting form which creates a sequence of open and semi-enclosed spaces under its roof. It seeks to convey an abstraction of the everyday life in Chinese countryside where boundaries of private and public realms are not always defined.
The Cloud Village is structurally made possible by the robotic printing technology developed by Philip F. Yuan and his team. Read below for a detailed account of the project from the architects.
Tongji University Affiliate Elementary School / Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects
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Architects: Atelier Liu Yuyang Architects
- Area: 26200 m²
- Year: 2016
Para Eco House / Tongji University Team
Designed by the Tongji University Team, the “Para Eco House” combines both parametric and ecological strategies into the logic of the architectural language used in the house design. By using both “passive” and “active” energy systems, they go beyond the functional and environmental requirement to create a paradigm for a low carbon future. The concept of creating a multi-layer skin emerges from a combination of Dao theory in eastern philosophy and the theories of Michel Foucault in western thought, especially the ideas of autonomy in architecture. More images and the team’s description after the break.