Urbanus is under the leadership of partners Liu Xiaodu,Meng Yan and Wang Hui,Urbanus is a think tank providing strategies for urbnism and artchitecture in the new millennium.The name of”URBANUS”derives from the Latin word of”urban”,and strongly reflects the office’s design approach:reading architectural program from the viewpoint of the urban environment in general,and the ever changing urban situations in specific.
Urbanus is committed to the Modernist belief that architecture is a pivotal force for a better life,and hence architects should push the boundary of their traditional role and be a progressive force in the society.

domus:Why is your office named after”Urbanus”?What main purpose and perspective of your design does it reflect?
Meng Yan:The urban problem has been the most important and practical issue which architects encounter today.At the end of 1998,when we set up our office,it was called”Global Urban”,and when we officially changed it to “Urbanus”.As colorful as the urban backdrop itself,Urbanus-the Latin etymaof urban which means”something related to cities”and is characterized by its large-scale coverage,multiple meanings,and compatibility.We believe that the name of our office,which was born at the meeting of two centuries,should vividly represent one of the core issues surrounding the architecture in this new century:the massive rush towards urbanization.Urbanus aims to illustrate and create a relationship between architecture and space in the scope of the city and a unique urban experience.

domus:”Village/City:two proposals for an urban center in villages in Shenzhen”has attracted wide public attention.What is your opinion on the ramifications of architecture in cities which are experiencing rapid trasformation?

Meng Yan:We focus on urban issues,as we are the participants who actively join in the urban construction,but
we are not scholars.Shenzhen represents a typical modern city:no history,no character,no form,yet full of impact,and a blend of other cities,both over artifical and over concentrated.It is continually producing ultra-orderliness and ultra-disorderliness at the same time,and this flexibility is contained in the artificial orderliness and disordeliness,where Urbanus tries to discover harmony and new possibilities that have arisen and will arise between a city and architecture.
In recent years,as cities sprawl and land resources shrink,the downtown villages in Shenzhen are under great pressure to rebuild.But even if there are deliberate strategies,the colossal reconstruction will also raise new urban problems.Through research,we discovered that the downtown villages play a role,which cannot be replaced by rapidly transforming cities such as Shenzhen.
As fragments or residue in the city,they provide inexpensive rental options for lowincome dwellers or new immigrants;after several years,these downtown villages have developed into microcosms and micro-cities.Their organization and space-use techniques are unique and effective,they also demonstrate a particularly vivid and realistic living status.In this sense,the downtown villages represent real circunstances life in parallel worlds of the same city.
A healthy city must have diversity to absorb others and reserve space for itself.Like the Chinatowns,Koreatowns or Indiatowns booming in metropolises around the world,organic reconstruction may be better for creating multicultural and lively modern cities than complete reconstruction.These villages are already valuable in society,to architecture and urban planning.

domus:Architecture design and landscape design seem to be your double-edged sword,you will combine both of them together in a project for the Shenzhen public art center,which is going to be completed soon.What do you hope to express in your artwork?
Meng Yan:Urbanus never assumes architecture is just constructing buildings in a void,but as reconstruction,the significance of material,the space and culture of a site.We try our best to make every project actively relevant to its urban surroundings,to recognize and inspire new urban lifestyles,and then reweave each site and city together .In our ppinion,architecture and landscape are inseparable,though materials and ways of working differ from each other.Architects can only complete an urban building project by combining architecture and landscape
The Public Art Center in Shenzhen,which was built on an abandoned parking lot,is one of our early projects.It was designed in 2000,but not until 6 years later will it be completed.In this project,we intend to blur the boundaries between architecture,public squares,and landscapes,to make it a complex and curving surface splitting away from its original site:serious elements of space such as interiors and exteriors,corridors and walls communicate with the surrounding compressed city.The bizarre cultural space of this urban garden,which is totally different from any commercial development,will cling to and inspire the cultural context of a modern rural life,interact with the noisy urban landscape,and supply new media and clues for the deeper cultural meaning of urban space.

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