Split Lives: Stories from the Underground House

  • The Chinese countryside in transformation (Shaanxi, China). Image Courtesy of Rural Urban Framework.
  • Old vs New: underground houses surrounded by new apartment blocks (Shaanxi, China). Image Courtesy of Rural Urban Framework

Joshua Bolchover and John Lin of Rural Urban Framework, both academics and teachers, examine rapid urbanisation of rural areas and have extended the research and design work they have undertaken for nearly a decade. Their research investigates life inside vernacular dug-out house typology and the transforming landscape in Northern China to produce an immersive experience for the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2020-2021.

Joshua Bolchover and John Lin of Rural Urban Framework, both academics and teachers, examine rapid urbanisation of rural areas and have extended the research and design work they have undertaken for nearly a decade. Their research investigates life inside vernacular dug-out house typology and the transforming landscape in Northern China to produce an immersive experience for the Venice Biennale of Architecture 2020-2021.

By examining the process of house-making and the unique typology of vernacular dug-out houses, the exhibition reflects on the increasingly homogenised rural housing driven by demand and economy and elucidates the dialectic between the past and the present, the traditional and the generic, and the rural and the urban, that shapes and configures China’s contemporary condition today.

Milestone

2019.Q2
Project awarded Design Trust Feature Grant

2021.05-11
The project will be exhibited at the 17th Venice Biennale of Architecture

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2020
Grantee: Joshua Bolchover, John Lin

Joshua Bolchover (UK, 1974) is an Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong. His current research focuses on the complex urban-rural ecology of cities. He set up Rural Urban Framework with John Lin in 2005 with the remit to create a not-for-profit agency as a platform for design and research. Their projects have been internationally exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2016, the Design Museum London 2016, and The Chicago Biennale 2015. RUF’s work has been awarded the RIBA International Emerging Architect Award 2016 for the Angdong Hospital, The Curry Stone Design Prize 2015, The Ralph Erskine Prize 2014 and has received third place commendations for the Architectural Review’s Healthcare and Schools Award. Joshua’s recent publications include Border Ecologies: Hong Kong’s Mainland Frontier, Birkhauser, 2016, Designing the Rural: A Global Countryside in Flux, Architectural Design 2016, and Rural Urban Framework: Transforming the Chinese Countryside, Birkhauser 2013.

John Lin (Taiwan, 1975) is an architect based in Hong Kong and currently an Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong. He was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the US in 1983. After studying in both the Art and Engineering programs at The Cooper Union in New York City, he received a professional degree in Architecture in 2002. His current research investigates the process of rural urbanization in China with a focus on the sustainable development of Chinese villages. Together with Joshua Bolchover he is the director of Rural Urban Framework (RUF), a non-profit research and design collaboration at HKUrban Lab in The University of Hong Kong dedicated to developing sustainable prototypes for rural areas. The projects integrate local and traditional construction practices with contemporary sustainable technologies. He has taught previously at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, School of Architecture and The Chinese University of Hong Kong. He is the 2014 recipient of the Hong Kong University Grants Commission’s Outstanding Teaching Award.

Organisation: Rural Urban Framework, HKU

In 2005 the Chinese government announced its plan to urbanize half of the remaining 700 million rural citizens by 2030. At the same time, Joshua Bolchover and John Lin set up Rural Urban Framework (RUF), a research and design collaborative based at The University of Hong Kong. Conducted as a non-profit organization providing design services to charities and NGOs working in China, RUF has built or is currently engaged in various projects in diverse villages throughout China and Mongolia. The projects include schools, community centers, hospitals, village houses, bridges, and incremental planning strategies. As a result of this active engagement, RUF has been able to research the links between social, economic, political processes and the physical transformation of each village. The projects integrate local and traditional construction practices with contemporary technologies.

Joshua Bolchover and John Lin are currently Associate Professors at the University of Hong Kong and have taught and lectured in numerous academic institutions including Columbia University, The Berlage Institute, Pratt Institute, EPFL, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Cambridge University and the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts.