The Shenzhen’s Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (UABB), one of the leading architectural exhibitions in the world, has announced the curators of its 2019 edition. One of the two winning teams will be led by Chief Curator Carlo Ratti, founding partner of the design practice CRA-Carlo Ratti Associati and director of the Senseable City Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and by Academic Curator South China-Torino Lab, a joint center established by Politecnico di Torino and South China University of Technology and directed by Michele Bonino and Sun Yimin.
Politecnico di Milano, in the person of the Vice-Dean of the School of Architecture Adalberto del Bo, is also part of the team as Co-Curator. The team’s proposal aims to critically explore the impact of digital technologies on communities and urban space. The 8th edition of the Urbanism\Architecture Bi-City Biennale will open in Shenzhen, China, in late 2019 and will run until Spring 2020.
All around the world, the last two decades have witnessed an increasing penetration of digital technologies in the physical space – a phenomenon often described as the emergence of the Internet of Things. This ushered in a series of radical changes in how we conceive, design and live the city. More recently, with a particular prominence in China, technological advancements such as AI and facial recognition have been accelerating a process by which the built environment is becoming more and more able to sense people’s needs in real time.
In 2019, the Bi-City Biennale will consider Shenzhen’s unique features, its geopolitical status, its rapid urbanization process, its central position as an innovation hub, as starting points to reimagine the relationship between new technologies and urban futures. The 2019 UABB will explore the new phenomena brought about by digital revolution that unfolded in parallel with Shenzhen’s growth, reflecting on urbanism and architecture in ways beyond physical boundaries, discussing how people can be empowered to become the true subject of our digital-physical cities.
The very history of Shenzhen speaks of an ability to anticipate change and imagining the future. A city growth in parallel to the emergence of the digital revolution, it constitutes Asia’s equivalent to the Silicon Valley, home to some of the biggest technological companies in the world, from Tencent to DJI, to Huawei to BYD. The “Shenzhen speed” and innovation potential make it an ideal living lab: a space where to imagine new scenarios for tomorrow. The 2019 UABB will inaugurate in Shenzhen in December next year. Source by Carlo Ratti.
- Location: Shenzhen, China
- Chief Curators: Carlo Ratti, Meng Jianmin, Fabio Cavallucci
- Academic Curator: South China-Torino Lab (SCUT – Sun Yimin; Politecnico di Torino – Michele Bonino)
- Co-Curators: Science and Human Imagination Center of Southern University of Science and Technology (Wu Yan), Politecnico di Milano (Adalberto del Bo)
- Executive Curators: Daniele Belleri [CRA], Edoardo Bruno, Chen Qiufan, Manuela Lietti, Wang Kuan, Xu Haohao, Zhang Li
- Date: December 2019-March 2020
- Images: Courtesy of Carlo Ratti