CUBE (Centre for the Urban Built Environment), based in the heart of Manchester, is one of Europe's most exciting Architecture & Design centres

CUBE is presenting an exciting collaboration between architectural office UiD and the Danish Architecture Centre in Denmark: CO-EVOLUTION.

CO-EVOLUTION concerns modern urban planning in China and was exhibited on the Venice Biennale in 2006, where it constituted Denmark's official contribution and won the main prize, the Golden Lion Award.

The CO-EVOLUTION exhibition shows how Danish architects and Chinese professors and students are helping to meet the global challenges following in the wake of China's massive economic growth.

The Challenge
Within the next 20 years, some 400 million Chinese citizens are expected to join the global urbanization race and the Chinese government has set itself the goal of creating appreciably better living conditions for its 1.3 billion-strong population. The rapid and extensive urbanization processes currently underway in China are vastly increasing consumption of natural resources, putting tremendous pressure on local and global environments. However, while – on one hand - living conditions have already greatly improved, on the other there are serious challenges.
“How can China proceed with its ambitious project to improve living conditions for its population without exhausting the very resources needed to sustain a better life?”
This is the question that the Danish curator and architect Henrik Valeur asks with the exhibition entitled CO-EVOLUTION.

The Collaboration
Four Danish architects’ offices – CEBRA, COBE, TRANSFORM and EFFEKT - have worked with professors, PhD and post graduate students from four of the most prestigious Chinese Universities. The project teams, each representing a Danish architects’ office and a Chinese university, have developed visionary proposals for sustainable urban development in the four Chinese cities of Beijing, Chongqing, Shanghai and Xi’an.

The Exhibition
The four teams present new models for holistic, large-scale, urban planning; integrating local needs, knowledge and low-tech solutions with cutting-edge expertise and futuristic technologies. Furthermore, the four projects confront a wide variety of economic, environmental, social and cultural issues related to the rapid and extensive urbanization taking place in China. The exhibition illustrates the value of sharing knowledge, ideas and experiences across borders.

For further information on the exhibition, please see the following link to the Danish Architecture Centre: www.dac.dk/co-evolution

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