AD DESIGNING THE RURALThe rural is not what it used to be. No longer simply a site for
agricultural production for the city, the relationship between the rural
and urban has become much more complex. Established categories such as
rural /urban and village/city no longer hold true. Rural and urban
conditions have become increasingly blurred, so how can we identify and
distinguish their specific characteristics? Where is the rural, and what
role does it play in an urbanised world? In developing countries the
countryside is a volatile and contradictory landscape: legally
designated rural areas look like dense slums; factories intersect fields
and farmers no longer farm. In contrast, in developed regions, the
rural has become a highly controlled landscape of production and
consumption: industrialised agriculture coexists with leisure landscapes
for tourism, retirement and recreation. This issue of AD investigates
how architects and researchers are critically engaging with the rural as
an experimental field of exploration. Contributors: Neil
Brenner, Christiane Lange, Charlotte Malterre-Barthes, Sandra Parvu,
Cole Roskam, Grahame Shane, Deane Simpson, and Milica Topalovic and Bas
Princen Architects: Anders Abraham, Joshua Bolchover and
John Lin (Rural Urban Framework), Ambra Fabi and Giovanni Piovene
(Piovenefabi), Rainer Hehl, Stephan Petermann (OMA), Huang Sheng Yuan
(FieldOffice), and Sandeep Virmani (Hunnarshala) |
