Our Shanghai urban study workshop is over, presentation completed yesterday. As I mentioned previously, our site was an area on the inner periphery of Shanhai, near the river, and our brief was related to the creation of urbanized innovation environments based on an existing biomedical research cluster in the area. This is a hot topic within urbanism right now, and brings up a really quite interesting discussion of the relationship of the urban environment to work spaces and networking. We worked with some planning students from Tongji university here in Shanghai, which was interesting and also really challenging.
Not only was language a strong barrier to communication, but perhaps moreso was the problem of extremely different pedagogies and understandings of urbanism and the role of planning and design. The workshop was held near the site, in the French concession area of the city, but yesterday's presentation was held at the fantastic campus of Tongji university. The drive to Tongji was really really amazing, because the elevated highway is so incredibly high off of the ground (I think we were on the 4th or 5th level of road?), and the road goes right through some of the most enormous buildings I've ever seen in my whole life. really impressive.
After yesterday's presentation, we had a great dinner with a few of the Tongji students, and then went to a karaoke place, where we managed to convince our tutors to make fools of themselves with us. It's quite amazing; you get a private room, and waiters bring you drinks and food. Much more fun, silly, and enjoyable than the American version of watching other unknown people sing sad country songs on a stage. It's been interesting to get a glimpse of contemporary Chinese culture, and the influence of western cultures on it.
Next week a group of us will be in Beijing, which I hear is an even larger city than is Shanghai, much more sprawled.
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