To be honest with you, we aren’t experts in architecture, but really into it. Having been invited to collaborate with Newly Drawn, a group of young Finnish architects, we were taken by the opportunity to explore the topic from an outsider’s perspective, to interview interesting people in the field and dig deeper into our own surroundings as well as placemaking in China.

We started first by producing communications for Snowball architecture events organised as part of Finland’s cultural programme for the Shanghai World Expo, and ended up as editors of the Double Happy publication. Already in the beginning we came across the outlandish duplet: Finnish and Chinese architecture. “What could Finnish and Chinese architects learn from each other?”, we asked ourselves in the midst of trying to encourage Sino-Finnish architectural exchange.

Going to Shanghai in March 2010, we met with both Finnish and Chinese architects who told us about their projects and interests, providing answers to our questions. The discussions revolved around social and ecological issues and innovations, cultural differences and similarities, the potential for collaboration and increasingly crossing disciplines. The contrast between Finland, a small Nordic welfare state still dominated by a modernist stance on architecture, and China, a country undergoing rapid modernisation and thus pushing the boundaries of architectural design, proved to be big. While practitioners in Finland seem to long for a new air of dynamism and change similar to that of the post-war era, Chinese architects returning from their studies abroad are tackling the preservation and development of cultural identity in urbanising China.

For us, it felt natural to approach the topic of Finnish and Chinese architecture by investigating design processes rather than the end results. We set out to pinpoint areas that we found particularly important when it comes to improving life through architecture in Finland and China. Building inspiring and enjoyable cities with many layers and cultural variation as well as creating comfortable homes, work places and public spaces – and routes between them – are, in the end, objectives of architects in both countries. But while Finns know how to support privacy, the Chinese master communality. And while Chinese architects know how to tackle chaos and speed, their Finnish colleagues are experts in taking advantage of tranquility and empty space. These skills can be applied in both countries, even if the starting points and issues are completely different.

Double Happy includes stories that reflect some of the various facets of placemaking. Commissioned by Newly Drawn and head-edited by us, with writings and illustrations from a group of people invited to explore the topic, it draws a picture of Finnish and Chinese architectural environment today. Graphic design and art direction by Åh.

Contributors: Mathieu Borysevicz, Bryan Boyer, Christopher DeWolf, Che Fei 车飞, Pan Jian Feng 潘剑锋, Hanne Granberg, Hella Hernberg, Kaarle Hurtig, Martti Kalliala, Hertta Kiiski, Dylan Kwok, Katja Lindroos, Meri Louekari, Herman Mao, Song Min 宋敏, Bert de Muynck, Rami Niemi, Hans Park, Janne Teräsvirta, Tuomas Toivonen, Timo Tuomas, Valtteri Väkevä & Hu Yang 胡杨

囍 (‘double happy’) is a popular decorative design composed of two stylized characters 喜 (‘joy’ or ‘happiness’). There is a visual resemblance between 囍 and the two lucky digits ‘88’. In Chinese the word for number ‘eight’ (八) sounds similar to the word which means ‘prosper’ or ‘wealth’ (发).

An overview of OK Talk and HEL YES! pop-up restaurant.

Making Places

The first event brought together six creative practitioners – Åbäke, design practice; Nene Tsuboi, designer and artist; Sarah Ichioka, director of Architecture Foundation; Teemu Suviala, co-founder of Kokoro & Moi; Tuomas Toivonen, musician and co-founder of NOW for Architecture and Urbanism and Finn Williams, urban planner and founder of Common Office – as well as an audience of fifty people.

Using different disciplines and projects, as well as the cities of London and Helsinki, as starting points, the discussion focused on the creation, evolution and essence of places. The panelists, having experience in making places through graphic identities, public saunas, events or urban planning, talked about utopian ideas and practical solutions, participatory spatial practices as well as the role and significance of localism and globalism, or planning and spontaneity, in their activities.

The gathering was complemented by Antto Melasniemi’s mushroom brunch, and it also included the London launch of Tuomas Toivonen’s Urbanism in the House album that continued on a boat ride in the canal, and was celebrated by listening to the record in the Islington Tunnel.

Nene Tsuboi, Benjamin Reichen, Sarah Ichioka, Teemu Suviala, Tuomas Toivonen, Finn Williams and Jenna Sutela.

Anni Puolakka, Nene Tsuboi, Benjamin Reichen and Sarah Ichioka.

Tuomas Toivonen and Finn Williams.

Teemu Suviala, Sarah Ichioka and Nene Tsuboi.

Antto Melasniemi, the chef of HEL YES!, and breakfast.

Urbanism in the House by Tuomas Toivonen.

Strategies of Participation

On Thursday 23rd, five speakers – Céline Condorelli, architect and founder of Support Structures; Ulla-Maaria Engeström, founder of Thinglink; HyperMarketo, communication platform; Karen Mirza, artist and founder of no.w.here and Suvi Saloniemi, curator at Kunsthalle Helsinki – and a small audience came together for a discussion about Strategies of Participation. Using tools such as an off-schedule (inspired by Brutally Early Club) and a potluck breakfast to which all the OK Talk visitors brought their favourite ingredients, we aimed to create an intimate atmosphere for sharing thoughts about encounters, interactions and collaborations.

The discussion evolved around topics such as spatial, cultural, psychological and communicative support for participation, self-production, online markets and communities as well as the concept of ‘non-participation’. Looking at strategies of participation from the perspectives of art, interaction design as well as cultural production of events and exhibitions, we also talked about the meaning of institutions, alternative cultures and friends in participatory projects.

The potluck breakfast, coordinated and cooked together by Antto Melasniemi, ended up including everything from fried British portobellos to Finnish crispbread.

Céline Condorelli, Ulla-Maaria Engeström, Jerome Rigaud, Karen Mirza, Suvi Saloniemi, Anni Puolakka and Jenna Sutela.

Céline Condorelli and Ulla-Maaria Engeström.

Jerome Rigaud, Karen Mirza and Suvi Saloniemi.

A potluck breakfast.

Audience at the OK Talk on Strategies of Participation.

Borderlands

The third OK Talk London dealt with the borderlands between different disciplines and featured five speakers – Revital Cohen, designer; Martti Kalliala, architect and one half of Renaissance Man; Zak Kyes, graphic designer and founder of Z.A.K.; Max Lamb, designer and Aamu Song, designer and founder of Company – and a record-breaking audience of nearly one hundred people.

The discussion revolved around the blurring of boundaries between design, art and other fields with an emphasis on collaborative practices. It explored the role and characteristics of a designer in an increasingly interconnected world where the ambiguity of professional identity, often connected with varied locations, people and modes of practice, was, in many ways, seen as an asset. The panelists also looked at the idea of designers creating their own economies, the culturally varying ideas of the concept of design (in Chinese, the word for design literally means ‘dream-shaping’) as well as the relationships between architecture and music, or design and science.

A salmon and potato breakfast was served by the HEL YES! restaurant.

Revital Cohen, Martti Kalliala, Zak Kyes, Max Lamb and Aamu Song.

Revital Cohen, Martti Kalliala and Zak Kyes.

Max Lamb and Aamu Song.

OK Talk London tabloid and a salmon and potato breakfast by HEL YES!.

Audience at the OK Talk on Borderlands.

OK Do thanks all the OK Talk participants, it was good!

According to Antto Melasniemi’s plan, instead of an entrance ticket, the participants were asked to bring a breakfast ingredient each. Tuula Pöyhönen’s home was a perfect backdrop for making breakfast and enjoying the discussion.

Taking a fresh view on spatial practice, the discussion looked at the creation, evolution and essence of places. Using Helsinki and London as starting points, it revolved freely around placemaking in relation to cities and citizens, planning and spontaneity, as well as infrastructure and spirit of spaces. It will be documented in a publication following the series of events in Helsinki and London.

Shohei Shigematsu and Nene Tsuboi

Hanna Harris, Amanda Levete, Shohei Shigematsu and Nene Tsuboi

Bryan Boyer

See you at OK Talk London on 18, 23 and 25 September at HEL YES!, Wenlock Road 1-3 as Part of London Design Festival! The OK Talk London tabloid will be out on Friday, 10 September.

The near-collapse of our financial system has had tremendous effects on the architectural profession. The number of unemployed architects worldwide is higher than ever before. This, combined with the fragmentation of the building process into the hands of specialist consultants and the shift from architects being in the service of public to private capital, has made a lot of the work and responsibilities that traditionally belonged to them simply disappear or move to other professional domains. This is why newly graduated architects have difficulties finding jobs that match their education, creative ability or ambition – not to mention the thousands of students facing an increasingly uncertain future.

It is clear that new professional models are needed to accompany that of the architect as we have learned to know her. A degree in architecture is rarely considered a generalist education in the sense that one in law or economics is. Why should it be – if one thinks of ‘architecture’ merely as the art of designing buildings (a noble art as it is). However, if it is allowed to encompass its full potential and considered the art of dealing with contradictory problems and breaking down multidimensional and complex agendas into understandable, readable, liveable and functional concepts, designs and strategies, it opens up a whole new vista of professional opportunity. From the United Nations to curatorial practices, from rethinking organisational models to bringing a pronounced spatial expertise to politics, architects can challenge and add value to existing institutional, economic, social and governmental frameworks.

Martti Kalliala is an independent architect and musician who is currently touring the world with his electronic music project Renaissance Man. He has worked with, amongst others, NOW for Architecture and Urbanism and OMA. Kalliala is also currently editing a publication on better dreams for Finland.

Hans Park is an architect specialising in urban design and research. He currently works in Tokyo for Nihon Sekkei International, and has previous work experience in Nairobi, Seoul and Helsinki.

The Snowball project aimed to bring together Finnish and Chinese architecture through two events: one in Kiasma, Helsinki on February 12 and the other in Shanghai on March 25-27, 2010.

The events promoted Sino-Finnish architectural exchange. Tailored for Finnish architects wanting to collaborate with Chinese clients and colleagues, they presented an insight into contemporary opportunities, challenges and ambitions in China and provided the possibility for Finnish architects to present their work to local practitioners.

Snowball Shanghai programme booklet asks what can Finnish and Chinese architects learn from each other.

OK Do edited a programme leaflet for the Snowball Helsinki event as well as a booklet for Snowball Shanghai including articles about the purpose and background of the event as well as a short introduction to the Chinese and Finnish participants.

We also commissioned the design of the event material from Åh who left off with the idea of a snowball effect – a process that builds upon itself, forming a virtuous circle – apt for the series of events bringing together thinking and doing from two cultures. The blue ink snowball grows in size starting from an advertisement and a programme leaflet for Snowball Helsinki and reaching its peak in a programme booklet for Snowball Shanghai.

A hill with a hole. "Paper architecture" by Alexander Brodsky and Ilya Utkin from the book Brodsky & Utkin: The Complete Works (Princeton Architectural Press, 2003).

The backward world

Recently in Shanghai, I saw many people walking backwards on the street and in the parks. As it turns out, they were following the footsteps of a mythic Chinese immortal, who could do it faster than the eye could see. In China, in addition to healthy exercise, walking backwards is also considered akin to a karmic reverse, allowing the walker to correct mistakes and sins of the past. But what is the world like in reverse?

All the time in the world

The weekend never ends in Berlin. There is no financial or social pressure to practice the everyday, so the outgoing Berliners work together to make the city more enjoyable, distorting time and typical etiquettes. In Berlin, a night out can stretch over days, weeks, and even years. As quantum physicists would say, probability is all we ever know about when it will come to an end.

Dream world

Last year, I read The Book of Scotlands, in which Nick Currie aka Momus uses negative space, or Ma in Japanese culture, to discover what his native country of Scotland could  become through writing about everything except the place itself. Like the surrealists – or Soviet “Paper Architects” ignoring the boundaries of possibility and gravity in their 1980s designs – Momus recognises the omnipotence of the imagined. “Every lie creates a parallel world; the world in which it is true,” he says.

The text was published as part of physics studies for the Science Poems book.

Lou YongQi, Aalto & Tongji Design Factory

Having spent 6 years studying in the US, Zhang Ke doesn’t have time to work too much outside China where there’s a lot of demand for urbanism. The same goes for almost all the other local architects we met. Wang Shu, the principal of Amateur Architecture Studio and the head of the architecture department at CAFA in Hangzhou, travelled outside China for the first time in 2001 when presenting his work at the Venice Biennale. “My work has its roots here, it entails a Chinese philosophy,” Wang Shu explains his thoroughly local architecture known for experimental building processes and indigenous use of materials.

Meng Yan and Lou YongQi are also overseas-educated architects who have decided to stay in China. Meng Yan is one of the founders of URBANUS, a think tank operating in Beijing and Shenzhen to provide strategies for urbanism and architecture, and Lou YongQi is the vice dean and associate professor at the department of architecture at Tongji University as well as the coordinator for DESIS-China network. In addition, he is the representative of the Sino-Finnish Aalto & Tongji Design Factory project, which sets out to combine design, business and technology education in Shanghai. Meng Yan and Lou YongQi share their views on the changing role of an architect today. “Design is changing from design doing to design thinking, and architecture needs to contribute to the new ways of development,” Lou YongQi says. “Many aspects of our lives should be re-evaluated, and architects should push the boundaries of their traditional role in order to act as a progressive force in the society,” Meng Yan continues. “For me, any building activity without comprehensive thoughtfulness will be insignificant,” Wang Shu adds.

“Many aspects of our lives should be re-evaluated, and architects should push the boundaries of their traditional role in order to act as a progressive force in the society.” – Meng Yan, URBANUS

The discussion with the foursome revolved around topical design methods such as anthropology, spontaneity and crossing disciplines.

Anthropology

China has many different cultures within it. “When designing to a new area, it’s important to go and stay there for at least a couple of weeks with no preconceptions; get to know the agriculture and talk with people,” says Zhang Ke. “One should neither look up to a culture too much nor look down on it. It’s important to be neutral and not to imitate, yet do something that the locals will accept.” standardarchitecture’s projects, like the Beijing Wuyi Elementary School Auditorium, the CRLand French-Chinese Art Centre in Wuhan or the Qingcheng Mountain Teahouse in Chengdu, often show both a comprehension of the past and a provocative approach in the modern context. “Our projects always include a degree of intellectual debate,” Zhang Ke continues. “They often explore and experiment with new means of construction in and for various cultural or historical urban settings in China.”

Meng Yan, URBANUS & Zhang Ke, standardarchitecture

Taking agriculture as a device for urbanisation seems to be a common approach among the new generation of Chinese architects. Wang Shu’s Amateur Architecture Studio has, for instance, shown an interest in adapting the rural Chinese recycling-based construction methods to the mass creation of new buildings. “Modern buildings are often considered at their best when they have just been finished, when they are shiny and clean, but with historical buildings it’s just the opposite: their value increases over time,” Wang Shu says. “Why not adopt a similar approach to new buildings through the use of recycled materials, for instance? I like materials that have a history and buildings that live, like animals.”

“I like materials that have a history and buildings that live, like animals.” – Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio

Many of Amateur Architecture Studio’s projects, such as the Ningbo Historic Museum or the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou, explore a building’s relationship to nature and its human environments, and Wang Shu likes to take a stand on keeping up with traditional modes of living in a rapidly changing context. “In 20 years, almost 90% of the Chinese landscape, and the Chinese culture with it, has been demolished,” he says. “Every year, I visit the countryside, and it’s like a dream. But there’s no way of going back to the old traditions, so we should come up with new ways to return to the beautiful dream. For instance, not every citizen can have a big house because the population is too large – therefore, that’s not the right dream anymore.”

Meng Yan’s practice, URBANUS, explored traditional Chinese Hakka architecture in their spatial layout for Tulou affordable housing in Guangdong. Drawing on a collective way of living in between the city and the countryside, the idea behind the project was to find inexpensive ways of living together. “Unlike rich people, people with less income need to collaborate and share information in order to find jobs and maintain a nice living,” Meng Yan explains the thinking behind their round-shaped housing blocks. “Besides, their rooms are so small that they need to extend their lives outside them.” Having done a lot of research on low-income housing, studying how much the inhabitants pay for living, how much room do they need, what kind of functionality they find most important and how their safety needs to be ensured, URBANUS came up with design solutions such as a safety door but was surprised about many things that took place in reality. “Luckily, the client didn’t want the safety door because it was too expensive,” Meng Yan says. “As it happens, the people living in Tulou keep their doors open. The housing area is very safe because of the social interaction. People look after each other, and many of them even share cooking during the weekends.” Having had the possibility to continue their anthropological studies thanks to the far reaching thinking of their client, the real estate developer Vanke, URBANUS has learned a lot by observing the life in their building, and even lodging in them for some time.

Spontaneity

Wang Shu speaks for “infinitely spontaneous order” when it comes to designing new buildings. He thinks that modern architecture is often too clean to really resonate with the real life. “I like my buildings bazars rather than sculptures,” he says. “I want to involve people in the process of making places. To me, what makes buildings interesting is the way their inhabitants have repaired or redone them.” Lou YongQi agrees: “We as architects and designers need to learn to give up things. The most beautiful cities are not designed by us, they’ve been built over the years by many different people.”

“We as architects and designers need to learn to give up things. The most beautiful cities are not designed by us, they’ve been built over the years by many different people.” – Lou YongQi, Tongji University

Wang Shu has applied an open and collaborative approach to his architecture from the very beginning. “In 1991, a friend of mine wanted to put up a small temporary theatre in Hangzhou,” he explains. “He didn’t have much money, so we decided to use all of it for buying timber. See, my friend had worked as a stage designer and I knew that stage designers would never leave building material unused. Then, we started a spontaneous process of construction based on my preliminary design. I sat at the construction site smoking and drinking tea, observing carefully and telling the construction workers what to do on the spot – changing the idea of design from concept to action.”

Having worked in close collaboration with construction workers (and mostly with the same ones) for a long time now, Wang Shu knows that rather than practicing abstract thinking, craftmen think by hands. “They always surprise me,” he says. “For example, I designed the facade of the Ningbo Historic Museum using almost forty different materials, carefully planning how they should be placed and how the wall should look. Then, I gave my plan to the construction men and something totally unexpected happened. Due to safety structures, they couldn’t see the whole building at once but rather looked worked on small areas at a time, placing all the materials randomly and thus very differently from what I had planned.” Wang Shu ended up prefering the design of the construction workers over his own and enjoying the feeling of not being able to control everything in the building process. “My work is to give guidelines, a direction for the craftsmen who will then think by hands and come up with new things,” he notes.

Wang Shu, Amateur Architecture Studio

Talking with Wang Shu, it appeared that he saw spontaneity the most interesting thing about Chinese culture in general. And there were similar thoughts in the air with other architects, too. Zhang Ke, for instance, has experimented with visible flooding pipes in standardarchitecture’s French-Chinese Cultural Exchange Center project. “Let it happen in China,” he states, referring not only to the flooding pipes quite randomly cutting a building but also to things like interior design projects changing the functions of buildings overnight, or the overall fast speed and short timeframe of projects.

“Let it happen in China.” – Zhang Ke, standardarchitecture

Crossing disciplines

“In China, young creative practitioners don’t feel a need to define whether they are architects, designers or whatever,” Zhang Ke says. “It’s interesting to work with people from different fields. The Sino-Finnish Aalto & Tongji Design Factory project also aims to combine design, technology and business in the education of future creative professionals. “We want to create an interdisciplinary platform where people can meet and start thinking differently,” Lou YongQi explains. Inspired by IDEO, the project focuses on new ways of development through social innovation. “I have realised a lot of architecture, 30 000 sqm of public building, during my career, but understanding people has turned out the most challenging task,” Lou YongQi says. “And how to make people with different ideas and skills to communicate? Instead of thinking about apples, oranges and bananas, one needs to think about mixing ice cream to get new flavours.”

“Understanding people is the most challenging task.” – Lou YongQi, with the experience of 30 000 sqm of public architecture

URBANUS collaborates with an artist, a multimedia designer and a graphic design office on a daily basis, organising workshops for sharing ideas at the office. They also run a space for contemporary art shows on the other side of the street from their Shenzhen office. Space e-6 involves different curators who put together exhibitions from architecture to photography, film and sculpture. Instead of calling themself an architecture office, URBANUS is a think tank. “We’re not different from typical architectural practices – all of them work hard and do more things that they’re capable of,” Meng Yan laughs. “No, seriously, when we started our office, coming back to China from our studies in the US ten years ago, we found that urbanisation was in a critical point here. And we saw new problems coming with it; problems that we hadn’t experienced before. So, we started thinking how we could define the problems and positioned ourselves as progressive architects asking questions and improving urban life. And not only the harware like buildings and spaces but the software, too – the life that would take place in these containers. It’s been quite time consuming to run an office like this, but we never once questioned our goal yet.”

Both Meng Yan, Lou YongQi, Wang Shu and Zhang Ke seem to agree that architects need to search for contemporary ideas through working beyond their typical boundaries and with different people. They all see the role of an architect as a progressive force in the society, emphasising the importance of research and questioning things in designing buildings or cities. “There are so many issues that are impossible to solve, so, instead, we need to start raising questions,” says Zhang Ke. “Naturally, clients aren’t always open for discussion and inquiry is often out of the question. Luckily, however, this seems to be changing as the clients get younger.” “Faced with continuous renewal, is it possible for architecture to be more flexible and participate in shaping new values?,” Wang Shu asks. “For me, architecture is only part time work. Humanity is more important.”

Here and there – Satoko and Kok-Meng's office mixes inside and outside spaces.

Thanks for inviting us over! How did you end up in Shanghai?

Satoko Saeki: I first came to China in 2000 for an internship, as a result of studying architecture under the guidance of a Chinese professor in Pennsylvania. Having lived in Tokyo and New York, I immediately felt that China was different. I was not interested in its architectural scene but more the atmosphere. Instead of being established and “ready”, there was an air of dynamism and potential – something was about to happen.

Kok-Meng Tan: I came in the end of 2003 to work on a large conservation project in the former French Concession. Then I met Satoko in a café where we both used to hang out. She had started her own practice a little earlier and asked me to join her.

Which café was that?

SS: It was a small casual café called Le Petite, run by our Japanese friend Noriko. Since then, she has made the place more private and moved it to her home. She used to work as a designer for Muji and has lived in Shanghai for many years. I can call Noriko if you would like to visit her.

We would, thanks (see the interview with Noriko)! Could you tell us about your design approach?

KMT: We are not interested in the kind of design that is currently hyped all over. We rather believe in the genres of “under design” (design that falls below conventional contemporary design as deemed too simple or too banal) “super design” (design that exceeds the conventional because it may be too extreme, too personal or just useless) and “non-design” (functional and straightforward items and ideas that were developed before the advent of “design”).

SS: We are also interested in creating experiences and affecting behaviour in spaces instead of designing expressive buildings.

“We believe in the genres of under design, super design and non-design.”

What kinds of projects do you carry out?

SS: We mainly do interiors and small-scale architecture because, as foreigners, it’s difficult for us to get hold of bigger development projects.

KMT: Lately, we’ve been working on a small housing project for two families based on the ideas of sharing and interconnection.

SS: The project is called Minus K House. In Japan, homes are often described as 3LDK (3 x Living Dining Kitchen rooms) or 4LDK, etc. But for these two houses, the kitchen is shared, and therefore not fully a K. In practice, all the 19 rooms of 3 x 3 square metres also function as passages: to move around the building, you need to pass from one room to another, and there are many ways to experience the house. One of the families uses their part of the building as a weekend house and the other part is used as a regular home. The openness allows each family to be aware of the other.

KMT: In the Minus K House, we also wanted to mix inside and outside spaces – to make the whole concept of ‘inside and outside’ insignificant so that the relationships between this and that, and here and there would become more important. When this happens, the walls become less important, even unnoticed, emphasising a communality in the space.

KUU is working on interiors and small-scale architecture for sharing and interconnection.

We definitely feel that Chinese culture is more inclined to sharing than our own. Could you tell us more about your view on the concept of sharing in Chinese architecture?

SS: After the Communist Liberation in 1949, families typically had to share their bathrooms and kitchens with others. This was not very convenient but people got used to it. Nowadays, Chinese people are wealthier, but through urbanisation, like in most of the other big cities, people have to move to tower blocks which diminish communality. We wish to bring the concept of sharing back to Chinese architecture, but in a more comfortable way than before.

KMT: We think that sharing, or the presence and recognition of somebody else, makes people more in touch with reality. In our office, a partially roofless space built in the 1930s for residential use, we can smell the cooking of our neighbours, see their underwear drying, and hear them chatting. We really like the setting because it reminds us that we are working in a real context, mixing the inside and outside spaces together.

“We wish to bring the concept of sharing back to Chinese architecture, but in a more comfortable way than before.”

How do you find clients and collaborators?

KMT: In China, everything happens through the people you know. Satoko just visited a really nice indigo dyeing workshop outside Shanghai which we found through Noriko.

SS: It’s a workshop run by a 75-year-old couple who use natural indigo and cotton and dye everything by hand. In fact, China is a great place for a designer exactly because of this: the craftsmen and manufacturers are near and it’s possible to work with them closely.

KMT: Basically, you can just make a drawing and take it to the product-makers yourself. In Japan and Singapore, we usually use catalogues for picking up construction material for our projects while in China we can work in close collaboration with the makers themselves.

You’ve also taught at the Shenzhen University’s architecture department as guest studio masters.

KMT: Yes, last year, we carried out a design studio called Shenzhen Super Stir with our students who were encouraged to give modern architecture a proper stir through a series of exercises. We asked them to rethink the idea of “clarity” – a common architectural notion that has been inherited from the early European modernists. The idea was to ask if an estrangement from clarity or definition could inspire us to new thinking about privacy, communality and boundaries – and ultimately to new kind of architecture.

What did the students think about the stirring?

KMT: The students seemed resistant at first, they wanted to make new things. In China, traditionally, students are taught to create form – and if the project doesn’t involve creating new form then the results are not considered new. We wanted to make the students see the value in designing new experiences, too.

SS: We also wanted them to experiment how cities might become interesting and more functional through the “misuse” of space. In the end, the students came up with great ideas for an old industrial block where spaces with different functions, such as education or trade, overlapped encouraging sharing and interaction.

Like you’ve discussed in your writing, in the West, people are also obsessed with new forms.

KMT: Yes, according to François Jullien, a French Sinologist (The Great Image Has No Form, or On the Nonobject through Painting), this has to do with the foundations of Western, in other words Greek, thinking where something conceptual or abstract always has to be manifested as something else – a presence of “this” means the existence of “that”. In traditional non-Greek thinking, such as the Chinese, there is no obsession with presence. Whether something is present or not is never asked, because it’s not part of the question. Presence and non-presence, form and formlessness, good and bad, past and present, big and small, you and me, and here and there all exist in the same dynamic continuum. According to the non-Greek logic, we shouldn’t even ask questions about form or non-form – it’s not about one or the other but they come from the same pre-differentiated source.

“In traditional Chinese thinking, presence and non-presence, form and formlessness, good and bad, past and present, big and small, you and me, and here and there all exist in the same dynamic continuum.”

How do you see the current mindset of creative professionals in China?

KMT: When we first came to China, there was understandably no layers – no historical thinking or understanding behind architecture and design. The work and discussions were either stuck in Chinese traditions or random references picked from the Western world – and these ideas carried no meaning, they were not progressive. But then things started to change rapidly.

SS: In the last ten years, big money entered China and there was a lot of development, a lot of big projects. But at the same time, more subtle cultural things developed, too. Chinese people started opening cafés with unique local character. Before, people always referred to foreign examples, but the younger generation has gained confidence – they look at their own culture, society and roots and take ideas from them to the modern context.

KMT: I think that many Chinese creative people feel like they don’t need to live in the West anymore. They’re making meaningful things in their own context and recognising their own environment as authentic. This is great because, in the end, people want real things. The fact that people are starting to be their own selves in China is a good starting point for newness.

Kok-Meng and Satoko's office is a partially roofless space built in the 1930s for residential use.

We agree, and it is interesting to see how many contrasting ways of living and working seem to co-exist, for instance, in Shanghai. It’s not so settled yet.

SS: Yes, many people live in a modern way familiar from Western contexts while many neighbourhoods also hold on to the old spirit of sharing and porosity.

KMT: We’re attentive to the behaviour of people in Shanghai – how they behave in different environments, at different times and with different types of people. Things are in a fuzzy and seemingly contradictory state. For example, Shanghainese interact with their family, colleagues, and shopkeepers in a very natural way, but at the same time they formalise their homes into abstract symbols of social status and taste. Our young clients don’t cook, but they still want a designer kitchen. They will move out in three years time, yet they worry about radiation from the marble. We need to understand this phenomenon in order to work with it.

Could you name some other things that interest or inspire you about China at the moment?

SS: Well, we’re interested in traditional Chinese landscape painting: how the use of ink on paper, a single simple medium, can create a world of many things based on gradations of tonalities, densities, dryness and wetness, becoming present and fading away, hazy and distinct, here and there, this and that. In the paintings, we can sense an atmosphere of an all encompassing world before things became differentiated.

OK, a street shop for xiaolongbao.

1. Street

In Shanghai, life extends from rooms to the street. From mahjong playing to washing laundry, people use asphalt as a base for carrying out daily activities together. Cooking, selling food and eating being some of them, we were taken by xiaolongbao as well as other local delights prepared on the spot.

One day, we tried to find a pair of Lilliputian stools which locals use a lot yet which don’t seem to be sold anywhere. The trick was to find one on the street and ask the owner if she wished to sell it. In fact, she wasn’t the owner of the stool, but a neighbour who happened to be the closest person standing by. In only a few seconds, she set up an ad hoc sales team: another neighbour brought a calculator for price negotiation, someone else went in search for more seats while a third person fetched us a carrier bag. Finally, the payment was delivered to the owner herself, busy doing laundry.

Instead of inviting friends to their homes, Shanghai people like to gather in some of the countless eateries of the city. Noriko Daishima, a Shanghai-based designer of Japanese origin (read our story about her), explains this through the fact that Chinese homes are very small, but also through the love of the streets. “I’ve heard that there are around 30 000 restaurants in Shanghai,” she points out.

Noriko shares a garden with her neighbours. It's both a meeting place and a working site.

2. Sharing

Sharing is caring, they say. Sometimes we got the feeling that Chinese people care about each other more than, for example, Finns. This caring and trust was manifest in doors that are left wide open in the middle of the city or a shop owner that left her outlet as well as a one-year-old child (slightly anxious) in our hands in order to go and find out whether another store had the product we sought.

The contemporary Chinese architecture is keen on addressing the concept of sharing, too. Metropolises in China are like laboratories where traditional practices of everyday life get tested against modern concepts and contexts. Meng Yan from URBANUS, the office behind Tulou low-income housing concept, has been surprised by the level of communality shown by Chinese inhabitants in their projects. “I know that it is crucial for many Chinese people to exchange information about jobs etc. with their neighbours, but the Tulou residents even take turns in cooking for each other.”

“In China, everything happens through friends,” describes another local architect, Kok-Meng Tan of KUU. We like the idea. A big city doesn’t have to mean a loss of trust towards others, or living detached from your neighbours. Having learned to be so independent, it might be the time to search the villagers inside us for the sake of “better city, better life,” as Expo 2010 Shanghai puts it.

Laundry day in the neighbourhood around West Mall.

3. Straightforward

“In Finland, people think a lot and in Shanghai, they do a lot,” our friend, a Shanghai-based artist and designer Pan Jian Feng reviews his experiences of both cultures. Although some areas of the Chinese society, such as doing bigger business in Shanghai, are extremely complicated, the methodology of daily life is often very straightforward – and extremely efficient. Working with Mr. Feng himself, we have found that plans are taken into action very quickly. While we might still be pondering which of the alternative concepts might work the best, he would have already tested them out.

Going back to the food, some of our favourite restaurants were tiny, anonymous noodle places where one would pick up the chosen ingredients (like pak choi, fried tofu and fishballs) in a basket and have them quickly turned into a soup by adding stock. Quick, flexible and uncomplicated. A recipe that, at times, works like a good design method, too.

When it comes to the relationship between design and production, China is full of opportunities for finding direct collaborators for handicrafts. People are still familiar with materials and accustomed to doing things with their hands. “Inspired by the traditional Chinese way of working, materials are my starting point,” says a Hangzhou architect Wang Shu. “I think we should look at rural construction methods and materials when trying to solve issues of, for example, sustainability. Hands are good for thinking.”

Goodbye Shanghai, so long xiaolongbao!

Daniel Palillo, Nene Tsuboi and the hooded tower of Helsinki Central railway station.

Traditionally known for its architecture, we believe Finland has recently been more innovative in other creative areas such as fashion and art. So, we sat down with Nene Tsuboi and Daniel Palillo to discuss architecture and urban design in Helsinki from another point of view.

While Tsuboi has contributed to the style of the city through architectural projects with NOW for Architecture and Urbanism, she has also designed colourful flags to take over the grey facades of Helsinki. This art project simulated the urban way of drying laundry outside the windows in Japan, Tsuboi’s home country. Palillo, on the other hand, shapes the street scene through his expressive frocks worn by people ranging from grannies to teenage boys all over Helsinki. He is known to be a big fan of the Austrian painter and architect Friedensreich Regentag Dunkelbunt Hundertwasser (1928-2000), famous for his experimental projects in urban environments. “Hundertwasser made his own clothes from what he found on the street,” Palillo tells. “He also had projects where people could, for example, paint anything a meter outside their own window in a block of flats.”

Nene Tsuboi enjoys city planning that is not too planned.

Tsuboi finds the spontaneous evolution of places very interesting, and enjoys city planning that is not too planned. “Walking past Tokoinranta almost every morning, I have noticed a melted spot full of ducks in the middle of the ice,” she explains. “One day, The Public Works Department had put up a sign with biological images of ducks as well as information on the species. The place became an official bird-watching spot by accident.” This kind of attitude makes Helsinki a more interesting place. Tsuboi tells that one of her urban design projects with NOW was based on the idea of giving people spaces and seeing what kind of places they make out of them. In the same vein, Palillo is planning to turn his backyard in Ullanlinna into a movie theater next summer.

Finding the digital clock and the hood with a 1:1 print of the building underneath covering the construction site in the tower of the Helsinki Central railway station (normally displaying an analog clock) a good design solution, we talked about dressing up buildings with Palillo and Tsuboi. “Construction sites could be vanished in the spirit of David Copperfield’s airplane trick where he uses a mirror and some smoke to make a plane disappear,” Palillo says. “The City Planning Department should hire magicians!”

“The City Planning Department should hire magicians!” – Daniel Palillo

“Being Japanese, I find it interesting how the functions of buildings are changed from offices to apartments here without the exterior changing at all,” Tsuboi says. “Looking at Helsinki facades, the inside of the buildings is a mystery while in Japan, the purpose of a building is clearly visible from the outside, and when the function changes, they change the whole building.” She likes the big sheets outside Ateneum, the Finnish National Gallery, that tell it’s an art museum. “What if more buildings had costumes saying ‘I’m a home for many kids!’ or ‘I’m a hospital!’?,” Tsuboi suggests.