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It started as a social media trend but brought traffic gridlock between two cities.

China is moving mountains and flattening neighbourhoods. But Dong Gong is sparking a revolution – by working slowly with what’s already there. As a book of his great projects appears, he shares his philosophy
Artificial boulders fill the studio of Vector architects in Beijing, like the result of a dramatic landslide, their craggy polystyrene surfaces rendered with chalky grey plaster. One rock has a striking house sprouting from its summit, a group of intersecting cubic volumes crowned with . Another has a cluster of industrial looking buildings nestled at its base, connected by an intricate colonnade. A third features a series of momentous terraces and rectangular pits carved into a gulley, with the air of an ancient burial site.
These are the enigmatic visions of Dong Gong, an architect who has risen to prominence in China as a conjuror of mesmerising spaces, crafting libraries, schools and museums that feel grown out of, or hewn into, their sites, built with extraordinary attention to detail. His feels like a miniature jewel-like version of , marooned on the beach, where daylight pierces through angled shafts and plays across the sculpted concrete walls.
His is a protected oasis, its classrooms and running track wrapping a grove of mature banyan trees in the middle of the bustling high-rise metropolis, a world away from the usual state-mandated educational barracks. While Chinese cities continue to build at relentless speed, moving mountains and razing neighbourhoods overnight, Dong’s approach is to slow down, and draw on the value of what is already there.
“ has actually been helpful,” he says, sitting in his office in Beijing, where a framed drawing of La Tourette leans against the wall. “It means we can slow down too, and rediscover a kind of thoughtfulness.” While big commercial offices that worked for the country’s major real estate developers are struggling, the likes of Vector architects see the current moment as a chance to take stock, recalibrate, and encourage their clients to approach things more carefully. Where demolition was once the default, the economic lull has given more currency to the option of retaining and reusing existing structures – a boon for both heritage and the environment.

The 45th American Film Market (AFM) was graced by the presence of Chinese films, with the China Film Joint Pavilion showcasing a total of 201 film projects. The event, held in Las Vegas in early ...

A recent poll finds 23% of Asian voters in New York City lacked access to interpreters and 39% were only offered English ballots.

New Atlas gave some perspective on just how big it is, noting that the 1,115-foot turbines are taller than the Eiffel Tower or the Chrysler Building. The "blade swept" area of 812,424 square feet ...

Authorities impose restrictions on bike hire after huge group blocks a highway between Zhengzhou and Kaifeng in China, as night biking trend takes off
A night-time cycling trend that started with four Chinese students riding 50km for dumplings blew out to a reported 100,000 people on Friday, jamming major roads, overwhelming a small tourist city and drawing the attention of authorities.
The pack of students, mostly on public share bikes, rode several hours through Henan province from their campuses in Zhengzhou to the ancient city of Kaifeng.

Trina Solar built a Texas factory to receive almost $2 billion from the Inflation Reduction Act. It changed course the day after Donald Trump’s election ...

VIRGINIA] MONTHS before Americans cast their votes for the next president, a dedicated 20-member contingent from South Korea and Japan travelled over 10,000 km to the US with a single goal – to show ...

A new HBO documentary about opposition to autocrats says a lot about the complex politics the president-elect inspires for people fleeing countries.

The Philadelphia Asian American Film Festival “is an opportunity for us to kind of look back and see where we have been, not only in our stories that have been told, but our heritage,” says Nani Shin, ...

Neither jail nor exile to Hong Kong has stopped Han Dongfang, a former Tiananmen Square protest leader, from championing workers’ rights. “If you’re born stubborn, you go everywhere stubborn.”

The president-elect’s call for Taiwan to spend more on its own defense and his complaints about its semiconductor dominance may herald a tenser relationship.