Chinese High density housing typologies: The linear city - This is an example of the unexpected rural view from our train window from Shanghai to Beijing; identical repetitive high rise towers laid out in long blocks as far as the eye can see. It reminded us of Le Corbusier's Ville Radieuse, (a vision of an ideal city which aimed to represent a utopian dream). In reality, in this dsytopian view, there is a lack of human scale and connection to the ground, space inbetween is rendered as wasteland and many blocks are unfinished or empty. Numerous over scaled blocks had also been joined several times to create enormous walls of housing! We assumed this was the result of a government needing to supply large quantities of housing as quickly as possible to an ever going population...As an architect and developer and knowing nothing about China's housing issues, we researched further, and of course it's very complex. In summary, (briefly), the chinese economy boomed the housing industry ballooned! Property is big business in China, but property development in China is vastly outgrowing the number of people and those who can afford it and many properties are now remaining empty - 89 million properties - creating ghost cities and towns, (e.g. Ordos). The Chinese housing market is massively oversupplied and overvalued which critics say dissproportionally benefits the urban population and not the rural poor. Our hope lies in architect angels like our Tim (Bartlett, UCL) who are returning to shanghai to help create and implement positive development for China's future. . . . #onfourfeet #thebartlett #uclstudents #china #chinahousing #construction #architecture #towerblocks #design #travel #city #photography #building #architecturelovers #architecturephotography #buildings #urban #lecorbusier #architect #housing #highdensity #riba #populationgrowth #community #society #housingcrisis (at Shanghai, China) https://www.instagram.com/p/BqJNYM5Bf0z/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1c1ygfeofgyq8
