Taihu XL

Background: Taihu XL was a speculative design research project that sits within the fields of architectural, urban design and planning. The project is a creative response to research examining the rapid urbanisation and expansion of Chinese cities from 1985-2019, and the challenges of their future growth. The project builds upon the work documenting the evolution and growth of Chinese cities, specifically the work of Rem Koolhaas (Great Leap Forward) and Neville Mars (The Chinese dream: a society under construction). It used scenario-based modelling as a tool of speculative urban research, building upon similar approaches authored by MVRDV & The Why Factory. Contribution: Taihu XL was an urban design project illustrating a future scenario for the Lake Tai region in China. It was presented in the form of a video, documenting the urban/rural landscape in the project site; a regional scale urban plan, presented in the form of a carpet, which demonstrated patterns of urbanisation towards 2050; and an immersive virtual reality sequence, that detailed a series of hypothetical urban scenes in 2050. Responding to the sprawling and fragmented condition of Lake Tai’s peri-urban region, the project modelled a 2050 scenario in which population growth is concentrated around existing city cores, and 80% of the landscape is set aside for wilderness. Significance: The project was exhibited at the 2019 Seoul Biennale of Architecture and Urbanism: Collective City, at the invitation of curators Dongwoo Yim & Rafael Luna. It was exhibited alongside 42 other internationally significant architecture and urban practitioners and drew approximately 450,000 visitors. The project was published in the public online catalogue, and published catalogue (isbn 9791161615134). It was documented by and remains publicly archived on Google Arts & Culture. The project has since been presented at the 2019 Shenzhen Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture and 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale.