Although Infra Jungle was the show’s centrepiece, MVDRV’s other works were equally engaging-and space-saving. In the southern Chinese city of Liuzhou, the firm rehabilitated an open-pit limestone mine, literally turning it into a site for terraced homes instead. Each unit was built according to the mine’s contours, creating interiors with different floor elevations and radically curved edifices.

In Tianjin, China’s third largest city, MVDRV retrofitted a worker’s district with the Solo Tower, an apartment block for affluent young urbanites. The T-shaped structure contains a communal “sky club” at the top, complete with cafes, restaurants and a health club, instead of at ground-level to minimise the building’s footprint. In Beijing, the firm wants to turn a disused factory into a cultural centre and alter the DNA of China’s shopping malls by designing a hollow, W-shaped structure in the heart of the city’s business district.

MVDRV may have set out to provide some answers to the questions thrown up by China’s extreme urbanisation, but they have opened a Pandora’s Box of questions for the next generation of urban planners and architects. Designing cities for a country of 1.3 billion people is an unprecedented challenge that will only become more urgent with each passing year. It will take more than scale models and smart ideas to address the issues of massive population pressure, rural-urban migration and urban density that confront China’s booming megalopolises.

MVRDV KM3: Proposals For Chinese Cities
Date: July 2nd – August 21st, 2005
Place: Shanghai Gallery of Art
Address: 3F The Bund, 3 Zhong Shan Dong Yi Road, Shanghai
Tel: +86 21 6321 5757
https://www.threeonthebund.com