Students and faculty from the USC School of Architecture, in partnership with USC’s American Academy in China (AAC), have been engaged in a summer‐long program examining how the “middle zone,” or more rural, outlying areas in between cities, are growing. The program travelled to Beijing, Lushan, and Xian, and is currently in Shenzhen where it is staging the exhibition China in Flux: Mapping the Middle Zone.
The goal of the multi‐city research trip, led by USC School of Architecture professor and AAC director Gary Paige, is to examine the ideas and conditions of in‐betweenness as exemplified by the transformations taking place between traditional urban and rural villages as well as by ongoing, contemporary countryside initiatives. The binary relationship between urban and rural villages is changing and in flux, resulting in a condition that is characterized by blurred zones and ambiguous territories. Yet, in spite of these transformations and the potential for a new rural‐urban hybrid, they are often lacking a strategy for social, economic and spatial evolution and sustainable growth. Consequently, our interest is to initiate a conversation by hosting an exhibition on this rather broad yet timely and significant topic with colleagues from universities in Asia, North America and Europe that have been conducting design research and experimental building projects in China.
In Lushan, a mountainous region in Jiangxi Province, USC students studied and created proposals for the renovation, addition, and transformation of fourteen vernacular dwellings in a remote village. Proposals were presented to AVIC Legend, one of China’s leading construction and design firms, which is currently working to repurpose many of the village’s more “traditional” buildings. Students were asked to develop “innovative and creative ideas” including speculations about new programmatic potentials for the sites as well as architectural and branding strategies. The students’ proposals will be part of the exhibition in Shenzhen.
