Intensive Care - Bartlett International Lecture Series

This event will be streamed live on The Bartlett School of Architecture's YouTube channel at 18:00 GMT. No registration is required.

About

Streamed live on The Bartlett School of Architecture's YouTube channel, this event will be a discussion between co-hosts Ewa Roztocka, Tengku Sharil  and Julia Backhaus, and speakers Joshua Bolchover and John Lin. 

This event forms part of The Bartlett International Lecture Series Spring 2021.  

Abstract

Care is not quantitative, it has no defined format and it is difficult to measure. It implies values, cultural attitudes, personal experiences and a complex web of interdependencies.

The architects and researchers Joshua Bolchover and John Lin from Rural Urban Framework, a design collaborative based at the University of Hong Kong, will discuss their work on how a care-full approach to architecture can stretch from being a speculative and critical tool on human existence to becoming a remedy to our planet’s urgent condition. 

Collaborating with NGOs, students, charities and governments, they explore the processes of rural urbanisation through build projects, research, exhibitions and writing.

This event aims to frame the concept of care as a committed form of speculation that considers how architecture can sustain the world we inhabit and at the same time open it up to new models of practice. 

Speaker Biographies

Joshua Bolchover is an Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong. His current research focuses on sites that are in the process of becoming urban. He set up Rural Urban Framework with John Lin in 2005 with the emit to create a not-for-profit agency as a platform for design and research. Their projects have been internationally exhibited at the Venice Biennale 2021, 2018, 2016, the Design Museum London 2016, and The Chicago Biennale 2015. RUF’s work has been awarded the RIBA International Emerging Architect Award 2016 for the Angdong Hospital, The Curry Stone Design Prize 2015, The Ralph Erskine Prize 2014 and has received third place commendations for the Architectural Review’s Healthcare and Schools Award. Joshua’s recent publications include Border Ecologies: Hong Kong’s Mainland Frontier, Birkhauser, 2017, Designing the Rural: A Global Countryside in Flux, Architectural Design 2016, and Rural Urban Framework: Transforming the Chinese Countryside, Birkhauser 2014.

John Lin is an architect based in Hong Kong and currently an Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong. He was born in Taiwan and immigrated to the US in 1983. After studying in both the Art and Engineering programs at The Cooper Union in New York City, he received a professional degree in Architecture in 2002. Together with Joshua Bolchover he is the director of Rural Urban Framework (RUF), a research and design platform dedicated to developing sustainable prototypes for rapidly urbanizing areas. Their approach combines research into large scale processes of urbanization and the integration of local construction practices with contemporary technology in built projects.

His recently published book As Found Houses (ORO Editions 2021) documents the unexpectedly innovative ways that rural self-builders adapt, modify, graft, cleave, and wrap their traditional homes. It provides the context for his current teaching and design projects experimenting with new ways to combine rural and urban living. 

More information

• Visit the Rural Urban Framework website
• Visit Julia Backhaus' profile

Image: Rural Urban Framework

View the full schedule for The Bartlett International Lecture Series - Spring 2021