Zishen Liu

In the past two decades, urban villages in China were constantly facing the threat of blind demolition and regeneration. As a particular case, in the last urban village in Guangzhou CBD – Xian village, the villagers spontaneously carried out an occupation movement delayed the demolition process for more than ten years. The project proposes an in-walled world which contains a series of inserted spaces in the existing ruins of Xian village. The proposal is based on a bottom-up occupation strategy – playing, gardening, sleeping – as different forms of resistance to the ongoing demolition. Seeking an alternative urbanism against the static conventions of central planning and the typical paradigm of China’s urbanization.