at the 2016 venice architecture biennale, liu jiakun has installed an immersive scale model of a vast multifunctional complex his firm completed in 2014. located within the giardini’s central pavilion, the exhibition details the ‘west village basis yard’ in chengdu, a huge urban development containing diverse public life as well as marketplace scenarios. covering an entire city block, the scheme is located in a recently urbanized area to the north-west of the capital of china’s sichuan province. responding to the biennale’s theme ‘reporting from the front’, the project seeks to revitalize the public life of its surrounding communities, while simultaneously sustaining itself.
