A selected gallery from the final presentations of “The Human City: Design for People.” Full photo gallery after the jump.
Continue reading Final Presentations and Celebratory Dinner: We Did It!
Behind the scenes … the night before our final presentations!
— Photos by Alec Hogan
A day of public engagement! The Cultural Preservation project team undertook several creative exercises to gather insights from members of the local hutong community.
Workshop participants will share their work at two public events:
Final Workshop Presentation (LIVE)
Saturday, September 20 (2:00 – 4:30 PM)
Tsinghua University, Academy of Arts & Design
Building B, Room 413. 清华大学美术院 B 座 413
#cultural preservation #electric vehicles #bicycle urbanism #food systems #energy #land use
Smart City Expo @ Beijing Design Week
Thursday, September 25 – Friday, October 3 (All day)
China Millennium Monument, Exhibition Hall.
More info about Beijing Design Week here.
Project updated by Alice Fang, Aiwa Musihua, Caroline Nowacki, Qihan (Philip) Luo
Every hutong we visit seems steeped in stories. There are different stories for different times of day—different groups of people catching the breeze by their doors, different tones and colors like the rush of life when children are let loose from the neighboring elementary school. We are, at once, participants and observers. As researchers, we take in the life and the sights around us, interviewing elderly couples sitting by their doorway, and stopping to ask children where they play. But needless to say, we have likely also become the object of dinnertime conversation for the families of people we interviewed.
Static scenes in the hutong present stories begging to be told. Here, a Buick is parked next to chickens, and a trash can with red wine, half eaten 馒头 [buns], and other trash.
Project update by Tucker Bryant, Zirai Huang, Mercedes Peterson, Yuxiao Pu
Fantastic Fieldwork in Fugoli + Fenghuiyuan 一级棒的富国里和丰汇园实地调研
Today we dove feet first into the fieldwork aspect of our Land Use Project; quite literally managed to land inside a taxi right off campus, hustling inside before we even gave the driver a chance to blink. Tucker, Yuxiao, Ray and I decided to try out a couple different methods of transportation other than our usual subway rides; this had the twofold purpose of trying to master the Beijing traffic situation as well as experiencing the slightly strange adventure that cabbing in Beijing entails.
今天，首先我们从土地利用项目的实地调研方面入手。毫不夸张地说我们一出学校就钻进了一辆出租车里，甚至没给司机眨眼的机会。我和塔克，欲晓，自睿决定尝试一些不同的交通工具，而不是我们通常使用的地铁。这样做有两重面目的：试图掌握北京的交通状况和体验在北京乘出租车这稍微特别点儿的历险。
Project update by Valerie Gamao, Joyce Hujing, J.K., Yipei Shen, Elaine Zhou
Our recent focus has been understanding the ecosystem of the various different bicycle livelihoods — from providing services like recycling or parcel delivery, to providing goods and products like food or phone cases, and from legal status to illegal status.
First, we learned that a bicycle livelihood used to be, and has the potential to be very lucrative. The parcel delivery guy moved to Beijing specifically because of his job, and the person who collects recycled good reminisced the “good old days”, when one can make almost 10,000 RMB/month (a salary higher than that of a recent Tsinghua grad). It’s a service that the people enjoy and still enjoy using, considering that the recycling man oftentimes receives calls from a set of clients that he has.
Second, we learned that even though the pay is above average and working conditions relatively pleasant and flexible, some of our interviewees still did not tell their families about their jobs due to a sense of embarrassment. However, other individuals were more than happy to share with us their stories.
Project update by Geena Chen, William Woo, Sophia Wu, Fay Yang
New discoveries
We discovered firsthand at the Tesla showroom that Tesla vehicles are very intentionally marketed towards an elite set of users. In the front and back trunks of the display Teslas were an expensive foldable bike and a duffel bag of golf clubs. The wall advertisements also showed a Tesla parked at a golf course. The images advertised the Tesla as a luxury plaything.
On the other hand, the grandfather we spoke to on the street brought the discussion back to practicality. His three-wheel electric bike, which is able to squeeze through traffic and requires low costs to purchase and maintain.
