Land+Living: Liuzhou Housing Development

Architecture, Landscape — December 27, 2005 Posted by Deborah

MVRDV Moves Into Mountains

Ever commited to the unconventional, MVRDV has designed a housing complex for Liuzhou, China that once again defies convention. The location of the project is a valley where the eroding mountain face will be enveloped by a series of staggered boxed structures that will leave pockets of vegetation in an amalgam of built and natural form. In the valley itself is a wetland or constructed pond that is shown to support both vegetation and housing on its edge.

There is something parasitic about the development as it grows from the valley, and unfortunately there is neither an ecological nor slope stabilization strategy present on their Web site, but it would be interesting to know how they plan on striking a balance between the existing ecology and proposed architecture. Liuzhou is scheduled to be completed in 2007.

Link: MVRDV
Via: China Daily

23 comments

Comments (23)

electro^plankton — December 27, 2005
In Awe

My god, they can do this? Is that a community or a whole city? It's very organic but since it's Chinese, I wonder if they took into consideration the fundamentals of traditional Chinese design; namely fung shui.

GABRIEL GRASSI — December 28, 2005
ABOUT SECURETY

I`M WRITING FROM ARGENTINA WITH MY POOR ENGLISH BUT OTHERWISE I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW IF IT ZONE `S GOT EARTHQUAKES, AND IF THE ANSWER IS POSITIVE I WOULD LIKE TO KNOW HOW THE ARKITECTURAL STUDIO STUDIED THE SCHEME.

Matthew Jackson — December 28, 2005
Reminds me of John Lautner for some reason

I love this! It is very organic. It harkens back to Myan architecture to me. It also some how reminds me of something John Lautner might design.

Patrick Mooney — December 28, 2005
Ecology?

This is China, the country that is constructing the largest dam in the world to drown a wonderful valley with priceless Arcelogical sites. China, that distroys Tibetan Buddhist Monestaries.

chopper — December 29, 2005
uh

building this is an architectural design firm, not the chinese government.

aTT — January 3, 2006
FAKE PLASTIC RENDER

we inhabit in bogota, colombia (tats south america, fellas) and the project that mv proposes is nothing different from the reality of CIUDAD BOLIVAR, a gigantic poverty settlement where 2 million people live and thus have built it themselves, meaning, no design, rather spontaneous order, FAR MORE AUTHENTIC AND INTERERESTING than mere fake plastic renders simulating chaos. Pathetic. MVRDV: WE THE POOR INVITE YOU TO A FACE TO FACE CONFRONTAION IN THE MIDDLE OF CIUDAD BOLOVAR IN BOGOTA, WHERE THE REAL THING IS GOING ON

Paulo — January 3, 2006
Outbreak

Under the lense of a microscope, this is what a replicating virus looks like. Yes, a spawning virus is "organic", but must it be writ large and spread over a mountain-side? Fake Plastic ["reindeer"]Render (?) was brutally acurate. It's a high design modernist version of a favela. Don't do this. Try this...embed each unit in the hillside (if you must) and use artillery camo netting to cover each window opening. The residents see out, but no one knows the hillside has been converted into a human bee hive.

Pierre — January 31, 2006
Favela ...

It looks like the favela of my town Rio de Janeiro, and it also looks like Costa Almofitana. The only difference is the money you will need to built it.

suguselvam — March 2, 2006
apartment therapy

why is the wall painted with white colour. is there any special reason for it. do the children feel good with that colour. will they feel lively.

chester — March 3, 2006
um, that would be double standard

The erosion concern was rightfully raised and it's the beginning of concerned inquiries. If the West intends to court China into democracy, good practices...etc, why such a development upon that landscape allowed? This development would be impossible to pass EIR.

Capt. Jack — March 9, 2006
Buying in China?

And to think that 20 years ago we were making plans to bomb it. Actually, I think we still might.

ELLI-GREECE — March 17, 2006
MULTIPLE COPIES

I KNOW ABOUT THE ECONOMICAL REASONS, BUT DOES THIS CITY YOU WANT TO BUILT HAVE TO BE A CHAOS OF MANY MODULAR BOXES? IT REMINDS ME OF THE SOCIAl HOUSING OF MODERN AGES, WHICH NOW CAUSES ALL THIS TROUBLE TO FRANCE AND ON.. DESIGN IS DEAD..

Sean — March 22, 2006
Scale?

From the renderings it's hard to tell if this will house 400 or 4000. Since it's shown in rural isolation it would be a bourgouis suburb with 400 residents. With 4000 it will be a slum. Nice to look at tho.

Manu — March 24, 2006

Looks terrible.. like a spreading disease, or a scab. A very half-assed attempt, overall.

Tim Lai — April 12, 2006
Grave Yard

I love MVRDV's work, but this looks exactly like the hillside grave yard we have in Hong Kong. Stacking up the hill is OK but can we have at least have some curves? It looks like someone just dumped a bunch of concrete container boxes on the hills. But then again, the aesthetic absurdity is the trademark in M's work.

Alex — May 13, 2006
Oh my

It'l like a Maya vilage.

cristina — June 10, 2006
box village

I really do love mvrdv's ideas but I think they should think twice and realise that all their buildings are gonna be used by people, REAL PEOPLE. It isn't really about how it looks, it is about how it feels to live in concrete boxes(and I'm telling you this beacause I live in an ex-comunist country).What are we doing here?Are we regressing or evolving?China is already a comunist country.Why do you have to make it more comunist that it is?

sunnyhappyshine — July 24, 2006
Cringing eyesore

There's a lot of money to be made in pouring concrete (for the official who OKs the project, that is.) This type of brutalistic gloom shouldn't be allowed to flourish. MVRDV works are singularly depressing. I'm from a sunny part of the world and MVRDV works make me realize how solar deficiency defects the mind. Sorry, Europeans.

architortured — September 3, 2006
circulation?

Can anyone please speculate on how vertical circulation is achieved on such hilly site? It's hard to imagine this will be built in concrete (where does it say that anyway?) considering issues of landslide, and the massive footing/piling design with the added load, and hydrostatic pressure pushing behind the units. Why not opt for light weight steel prefabricated components to be erected onsite?

The R'Kitekt — September 19, 2006
Reflections

It reflects much of what Tadao Ando has done with the Rokko 1 and 2 housing projects. The Rokko project has been a success, though Ando has a lot of pull in that particular city. As for design, its much more sympathetic to the landscape, compared to the massive tower cities developed in the rest of China. If a community of this design can sustain a large populous (like a tower city) its a much more human scaled typology. Unlike Rio, I doubt with China's growing economy there will be any problem finding residents (just acceptence from city planners with be the problem).

russtinail — October 17, 2006
Looks familiar

how soon we forget. this really reminds me of habitat 67 in Montreal: http://www.space1999.net/~sorellarium13/habitat-67.htm and habitat NY from Moshe Safdie in the '60's. It looks like this project has much less thought process in organization and design but it's similar. Moshe Safdie himself had written a "lesson-learned" of "what-not-to-do" in either PA or achitecture in the 90's reflecting on his rash ideas of housing as a young architect:- e.g. habitat 67. :)

Eyal — September 11, 2007
whats so new?

Israel has these type of buildings for decades now, in hilltop cities such as Haifa - They were even the inspiration for Moshe Safdie's Habitat which created an artificial type mountain as he remembered in his childhood in Haifa - so nothing new here. You can also see such hilltop construction in places like turkey and greece.

Heisnam — March 17, 2009
What is up now?

The project was supposed to be Completed by 2007. So, what happened? have not heard about it lately.