Vanke-Tulou Project Urbanus. Architects: Xiaodu Liu, Yan Meng, Hui Wang. Guangzhou, China, 2008

The Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum addresses the growing global concern and need for affordable housing through a special installment of the “Solos” series. The exhibition presents a housing prototype currently under construction in China, the world’s most populous country. “Solos: Tulou/Affordable Housing for China,” on view through April 5, 2009, is organized by Matilda McQuaid, deputy curatorial director and head of the Textiles department.

On the heels of the high-profile 2008 summer Olympics in Beijing, Cooper-Hewitt focuses on one of the most pressing issues facing the people of China everyday: housing. The exhibition spotlights one design solution for affordable housing by the Chinese architectural practice Urbanus and present contextual materials to examine the unprecedented building boom in China; the effects of the large-scale migration from villages to cities on the country’s housing, infrastructure and services; and the government policies that often determine design solutions.

“As the Smithsonian’s National Design Museum, Cooper-Hewitt has a responsibility to show the impact of design internationally and raise awareness about the mounting urgency for designers to develop affordable solutions for people around the world,” said museum director Paul Warwick Thompson. “By showing the Tulou project, Cooper-Hewitt will unveil a world few people in the West have witnessed and spotlight a paradigm for future living that may well hold clues to the new direction of affordable housing in other emerging economies.”

Urbanus’ Tulou housing project is being built in the city of Guangzhou, which is the third largest city in China, with a total population of more than 9.5 million. Developed by Shenzhen Vanke Real Estate Co., one of the biggest housing developers in China, the project is slated for completion in late 2008 and will include 245 apartment units, a dormitory, small hotel, shops, gymnasium, library and various communal and public spaces.

A typical unit in the housing project accommodates up to six adults and is approximately 33 square meters (about 355 square feet). The unit includes two bedrooms, a bathroom, kitchen, living area and balcony. For the exhibition at Cooper-Hewitt, Urbanus will display two full-scale bedrooms, with additional areas of the unit outlined on the gallery floor and walls, in order for visitors to fully experience the often cramped—compared to Western standards—spatial interior of a typical Chinese apartment. Current government regulations dictate that, in new construction, no apartment can be larger than 90 square meters (about 969 square feet). By comparison, the average square footage of new one-family homes in the United States is nearly 2.5 times as large, measuring 2,469 square feet, according to 2006 census data.

The Tulou prototype is based on a traditional Chinese circular and clay-constructed dwelling type of the same name. The distinctive circular form provides an alternative to the typical slab housing ubiquitous in China and all around the world. By integrating this housing design into the existing fabric of the city, Tulou also offers a remedy for urban sprawl.

The exhibition will be on view in the east wing of the second floor and runs concurrently with the exhibitions “Wall Stories: Children’s Wallpaper and Books” and “House Proud: Nineteenth-Century Watercolors Interiors from the Thaw Collection.”

Based in Shenzhen and Beijing, Urbanus focuses on urban, architectural, landscape, interior and exhibition design. Founded in 1999 by Xiaodu Liu, Yan Meng and Hui Wang, Urbanus has been recognized as one of China’s leading young design firms. The collaborative practice works to develop architecture and design solutions in the constantly changing urban environment. Recent projects in China include the Nanyou Shopping Park in Shenzhen, the Sun Plaza in Beijing and the Sonshan Lake headquarters in Dongguan. The firm’s work has been widely exhibited at prestigious shows, including the 2005 San Paulo Biennial in Brazil, the 2006 “China Contemporary” exhibition by the Netherlands Architecture Institute in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, and the 2007 Lisbon Architecture Triennale in Portugal. In 2005, the firm was featured by Architectural Record as one of 10 global “vanguard architectural firms.” The three partners received master’s degrees in architecture from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and both Meng and Wang also have master’s degrees in architecture from Tsinghua University in China.