Regions on the Rise.
Culture and Architecture as Drivers for Rural Development
8-10 November 2018

Hosted by: Songyang County Committee, Songyang County People's Government
Conceptualised by: Aedes Architecture Forum & Network Campus Berlin

Part I - Words of Welcome and Key Lecture by Remy Sietchiping (Part 1)

Part II - Key Lecture by Remy Sietchiping (Part 2)

THURSDAY, 8 November 2018

Words of Welcome and Introduction
Host: Li Hanqin, Magistrate, Songyang County, China - 00:03:15 - 00:11:41
Wang Jun, Secretary of the Songyang County Party Committee, Songyang County, China - 00:11:47 - 00:25:45
Fu Wei - 00:26:12 - 00:31:36
Kristin Feireiss, Director, Aedes Architecture Forum and ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin, Germany - 00:33:11 - 00:41:35
Hu Haifeng - 00:42:15 - 00:50:39

Key Lecture
Remy Sietchiping, Leader, Regional and Metropolitan Planning, UN-HABITAT, Nairobi, Kenya - 00:52:53 - 00:58:42

Part III - Introduction: Wang Jun, Hans-Jürgen Commerell, Xu Tiantian, Eduard Kögel, Li Xiaojie, Liu Yuzhu

FRIDAY, 9 November 2018

Introduction
Host:  Wang Jun, Magistrate, Songyang County, China - 00:00:00 - 00:05:52
Hans-Jürgen Commerell, Director, Aedes Network Campus and  Architecture Forum, Berlin, Germany - 00:06:10 - 00:13:20
Xu Tiantian, Architect, Beijing, China - 00:14:46 - 00:22:33
Eduard Kögel, Architecture Historian, Berlin, Germany - 00:24:23 - 00:31:31
Li Xiaojie, Chairman of the China Cultural Relics Protection Foundation, former Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Culture, former Director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, China - 00:33:14 - 00:37:03
Liu Yuzhu, Party Secretary and Director of the State Administration of Cultural Heritage, China - 00:38:36 - 00:55:13

Ten by Ten Impulse Statements
Experts from various fields and different countries reported on their research and experiences on rural development made in their specific region or institution.

Part IV - 10x10: Zhang Ke and Angel Luis Fernandez

Ten by Ten Impulse Statements
Zhang Ke, Founding Principal, ZAO/standardarchitecture 标准营造, Beijing, China; Harvard University Graduate School of Design, Cambridge, USA - 00:08:49 - 00:20:28
Angel Luis Fernandez, Head of Research Center for Urban Design, ESNE. School of Design, Innovation and Technology, Madrid, Spain - 00:20:50 - 00:31:11

Part V - 10x10: Zhang, Fitz, Mlecek, Zhang, Costa, Huang, Iredale and Zhu (Part 1)

Part VI - 10x10: Zhu Jingxiang (part 2)

Ten by Ten Impulse Statements
Zhang Lei, Professor, Founder & Chief Architect, Nanjing University; AZL architects, Nanjing, China - 00:00:00 - 00:12:10
Angelika Fitz, Director, Austrian Architecture Museum, Vienna, Austria - 00:12:30 - 00:23:01
Miriam Mlecek, Researcher, formerly Leibniz University Hanover; Programme Manager, ANCB The Aedes Metropolitan Laboratory, Berlin, Germany - 00:23:20 - 00:35:38
Zhang Yue, Professor, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China - 00:35:53 - 00:46:06
Nuria Costa, Mexican Women's Network, Morelos, Mexico - 00:46:22 - 00:56:23
Huang Yung Sung, Art Director, Han Sheng Magazine, Taiwan - 00:56:42 - 01:07:15
Adrian Iredale, Director, Iredale Pedersen Hook Architects, Perth, Australia - 01:07:43 - 01:20:45
Zhu Jingxiang, Professor, Chinese University of Hong Kong, China - 01:21:00 - 01:34:37

Panel ONE: Culture + Architecture 
Questions: How can the process of cultural renewal be sustained without losing the underlying values and traditions of the local? Could traditional craftsmanship, building culture and food production in connection with digital possibilities become the driver of an independent rural culture? What support is needed to turn traditional craftsmanship and materials into new products and services? What are the educational incentives? How to create a perspective for the young generation to stay in the country or to return by meeting their demands and needs?

Part VII - Lectures: Andreas Ruby, Li Xiangning, Hitoshi Abe and Farrokh Derakhshani

Lectures
Li Xiangning, Professor, Tongji University; Curator Chinese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2018, Shanghai, China - 00:08:23 - 00:29:03
Hitoshi Abe, Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA; Principal, Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Sendai, Japan - 00:30:40 - 00:50:29
Farrokh Derakhshani, Director, Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Geneva, Switzerland - 00:52:11 - 01:12:33

Part VIII - Panel Discussion: Andreas Ruby, Li Xiangning, Hitoshi Abe and Farrokh Derakhshani

Panel Discussion
Li Xiangning, Professor, Tongji University; Curator Chinese Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2018, Shanghai, China
Hitoshi Abe, Professor, Department of Architecture and Urban Design, UCLA, Los Angeles, USA; Principal, Atelier Hitoshi Abe, Sendai, Japan
Farrokh Derakhshani, Director, Aga Khan Award for Architecture, Geneva, Switzerland

Moderator
Andreas Ruby, Director, S AM Swiss Architecture Museum, Basel, Switzerland

SATURDAY, 10 November 2018

Panel TWO: Ecology and Economy + Architecture
Questions: What is the role of architects, planners, designers, industry and policymakers concerning the redevelopment of rural lifestyle? How to improve shaping an ecological rural economy for inhabitants to live a decent life from their work and wages? How can architects and the local population cooperate with the regional government to become a productive and attractive rural community of the future? How to rethink traditional agriculture knowledge and practice to turn it into revived food products? How to balance tourism between romanticism and segregation and sustainable development for local society and economy?

Part IX - Lectures: Aric Chen, Liu Shouying, Erhard An-He Kinzelbach and Juan Mayr Maldonado

Liu Shouying, Professor, School of Economics of Renmin University of China, Beijing, China - 00:07:00 - 00:30:55
Erhard An-He Kinzelbach, Professor, Architectural Design and Building Construction, Bochum University of Applied Sciences; Founder KNOWSPACE, Berlin, Germany - 00:31:06 - 00:51:46
Juan Mayr Maldonado, National Commission for Conciliation, Bogotá, Columbia - 00:52:30 - 01:14:48

Part X - Discussion & Farewell: Aric Chen, Liu Shouying, Erhard An-He Kinzelbach, Juan Mayr Maldonado

Panel Discussion
Liu Shouying, Professor, School of Economics of Renmin University of China, Beijing, China 
Erhard An-He Kinzelbach, Professor, Architectural Design and Building Construction, Bochum University of Applied Sciences; Founder KNOWSPACE, Berlin, Germany
Juan Mayr Maldonado, National Commission for Conciliation, Bogotá, Columbia

Moderator
Aric Chen, Curator-at-large, M+, Hong Kong, China

Outlook and Farewell
Wang Jun, Secretary of the Songyang County Party Committee, Songyang County, China - 00:44:56 - 01:12:58
Hans-Jürgen Commerell, Director, Aedes Network Campus and Architecture Forum, Berlin, Germany - 01:13:32 - 01:22:48

The following Front-Row-Respondents joined the discussion
Maria Auböck, Guest Professor, Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, Austria
Cui Kai, Chief Architect of China Architecture Design & Research Group; Academician of Chinese Academy of Engineering, Beijing, China
Winka Dubbeldam, Professor and Chair PennDesign; Principal, Archi-Tectonics, New York, USA
Kerstin Faber, Project Manager, IBA Thüringen, Apolda, Germany
Julio Gaeta, Dean ISAD. Institute of Architecture and Design, Chihuahua, Mexico
Nadine Godehardt, Deputy Head of Research Division Asia, German Institute for International and Security
Affairs (SWP), Berlin, Germany
Annette Heimann, Managing Director, Asia-Pacific-Forum, Berlin, Germany
János Kárász, Co-Founder, Auböck + Kárász, Landscape Architects, Vienna, Austria
Hannes Langguth, Researcher and Doctoral Candidate, Habitat Unit, Chair of International Urbanism and Design, TU Berlin, Germany
Clifford Pearson, Contributing Editor, Architectural Record, New York, USA
Luby Springall, Principal, Gaeta Springall Arquitectos, Mexico
Eva Sternfeld, Science Advisor, German-Sino Agricultural Center (DCZ), Beijing, China
Christoph Stroschein, Managing Director, GESI Deutsche Gesellschaft für Systeminnovation mbH, Berlin, Germany
Zhang Zhen, Guest Editor, Citymakers China-Germany; Research Assistant, Architectural Theory at RWTH Aachen, Germany

THE THEME
Rethinking strategies for rural development is a critical global issue today. Dynamic urbanization processes shape large areas of the world, while the revitalization of rural regions has been neglected for a long time. This has consequently given rise to pressing socio-economic and political challenges all over the world. To stimulate an international discussion, Aedes Architecture Forum Berlin presented the exhibition Rural Moves – The Songyang Story this year, which led to the initiation of this conference. The focus was on the duality and interrelations between the urban and the rural, seeking to explore what culture and architecture can contribute to rural renewal in interplay with economy, spatial planning, infrastructure, and ecology. The goal of this international knowledge exchange of holistic strategies and best practice examples was to discuss new concepts, which might ultimately establish a new rural confidence and identity as well as economic progress and reliability as major incentives to make people stay in or even return to the “hinterland”.

THE CONFERENCE
The conference invited policymakers, architects, planners, researchers, economists, curators and related professionals to the successful case study area of Songyang to share and archive experiences, strategies and new ideas for the development of the 'global rural region' of the future. This region in the southwest of Shanghai became a pioneer in the sensitive redevelopment of rural areas by implementing carefully balanced "architectural acupunctures".

Against this backdrop, the conference was structured around three main sessions complemented by excursions into the region to illustrate the topic and to offer opportunities for exchange: (I) a cluster of ten impulse statements to boost the conference with a wide range of positions by stakeholders from the various fields of practice and research in the rural context as well as panel discussions on (II) Culture + Architecture and (III) Ecology and Economy + Architecture.