OPEN Architecture's OPEN Metropolis
John Hill
6. September 2022
Photo: Screenshot from OPEN Metropolis Trailer
OPEN Architecture, the Beijing studio of LI Hu and HUANG Wenjing, has created OPEN Metropolis, an urban research and design project presented as a series of eight short films.
Ranging from public toilets to bus stations and urban parks, the OPEN Metropolis series aims to create a true "city for everyone" through a strategy OPEN calls "Voids for the Needs." The third film, "Redline Shops | Streets with Life," for example, imagines the walls of gated communities as an "urban street interface" filled with small shops. The potential transformation of restrictive fences into inviting shops is depicted, as in the other films, through photographs, diagrams, and architectural drawings. While squarely focused on Beijing, the series offers lessons — in design as well as representation — that could easily apply to other cities.
Watch the eight-part OPEN Metropolis film series below, on OPEN Architecture's website, or on OPEN's Vimeo channel.