The Earth’s Long Table (大地长桌). Image © 田方方
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https://www.archdaily.com/1034118/the-continuous-project-a-case-of-iterative-placemaking-in-long-yau-china
The architect’s role has traditionally been relatively well-defined: design a building, direct the project, coordinate logistics, and guide construction through to completion. As specialised fields have proliferated, together with a rapidly changing social economy, the practice of architecture has diversified, opening multiple paths for how architects can contribute to society.
Since the 1980s, one of the most consistent shifts may have been the separation between the “design architect” and the “architect of record.” Where a single office once carried a project from concept to completion, internationalisation—alongside cross-border work, licensure regimes, procurement models, and liability structures—has encouraged a split. Design teams increasingly set the conceptual and schematic direction, then hand over the design development to local record architects for technical detailing, approvals, and site execution. The model has clear advantages—sharper expertise, efficiency, and often profitability (or services offered at reduced fees)—but it also segments the profession and can distance authorship from delivery.
What, then, might the next shift be, and what new synergies could redefine the architect’s role? How should architects adapt to the changing professional climate? One promising trajectory is a turn from singular, permanent objects toward ongoing placemaking—iterative, context-specific programmes that prototype, test, and refine spatial ideas in public. Rather than producing one large, iconic work that fixes a site for decades, this model privileges cycles of making, use, evaluation, and adjustment at the community scale.
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It asks architects not only to research, design, and build, but also to curate, operate, observe, and, when needed, rerun the loop in the same place or elsewhere. Capital costs are lower, the tempo is faster, and the conversation with everyday life is more continuous. This approach opens roles across public and private networks—through architecture, temporary installations, urban tectonics, and art—crafting shared experiences that are flexible, stimulating, and more affordable, while keeping design intelligence embedded in the life of the city.
Sail (帆). Image Courtesy of Courtesy of Fengyuzhu
The annual festival Concéntrico—now marking its tenth anniversary—embodies this iterative, city-as-laboratory approach. Beyond Logroño, Spain, other initiatives are adopting similar strategies to involve architects in placemaking and in shaping art and cultural programmes, while refining the model itself. A compelling example in China is the Hu Shi Guang Art Eco Site in Long You.
Swing House (摇摆屋). Image © 徐戈Riverside as Museum: Placemaking Along Five Kilometres of Long You
Open to the public since March 2024, the Long You project is an ambitious placemaking effort focused on revitalising a five-kilometre riverside serving nearby villages and communities. From the outset, organisers invited a broad mix of established offices and emerging practices to realise more than forty site-specific installations at varied scales. The brief asked designers to work with context and community—engaging residents, drawing out local narratives, and reframing how the city is read—so the work would attract visitors while also co-authoring everyday stories with the people who live there.
Wetland Grotto (湿地洞窟). Image Courtesy of Courtesy of Fengyuzhu
Tree Theater (树剧场). Image Courtesy of Courtesy of Fengyuzhu
At its core is a rethinking of the museum typology: can landscape and village life serve as the exhibition ground, rather than the conventional white box? One emblematic piece, the Twisted Brick Shell Concept Library by HCCH Studio, is an open-air installation—no enclosing walls or roof—composed of carefully calibrated brickwork that forms a continuous surface. Instead of housing books, it orchestrates views and passages, creating visual funnels that frame the surroundings. The gesture suggests that the most vital “book” is our environment itself, inviting visitors to read the site through shifting apertures, light, and movement.
Twisted Brick Shell Concept Library. Image © 田方方
Another installation engages the river-edge farmland that flanks the site. Path of Water’s Voice (水语径) by Guo Liaohui + Fan Jiujiang + Shi Ziyuan leverages this adjacency by foregrounding the irrigation line that sustains the fields. Without disturbing either the cropland or the supply infrastructure, a light architectural armature is lifted above the conduit, making visible what is usually hidden and taken for granted. As a sculptural device, the piece releases a fine mist drawn from the same source, reinforcing the concept while creating a gentle microclimate. The shifting vapour draws visitors in, sharpens awareness of agricultural systems, and lends the Hu Shi Guang river edge an atmosphere that is both instructive and poetic.
Path of Water’s Voice (水语径). Image © 方鑫
Pavilion of Water’s Voice (水语亭). Image © 田方方
Elsewhere, an abandoned water-level monitoring station has been reimagined as a community lounge (瀫馆) designed by 沚山建筑 (Zhishan Architecture), now shared by locals and visitors. The conversion privileges indoor–outdoor continuity, placing the rough concrete in dialogue with vegetation and breeze. Paying homage to the building’s original purpose, the design choreographs rainwater: flows are routed to trace a visible path through occupiable spaces before draining into a central decorative pool in the lounge. The result is a modest yet exemplary act of adaptive reuse—retaining the raw structure, adding restrained interventions, and delivering a welcoming civic room for the district.
Hú Community Pavilion (瀫馆). Image © 薛楚金The Continuous Project: Architects as Long-Term Partners
What began as a conventional invite-and-deliver format has steadily shifted toward reciprocity. As the design advanced, more voices entered the room, and the work continued to adapt. Now in its second phase, with a third under discussion, the initiative is retooling its operating model. Recognizing occasional gaps between intent and day-to-day use at certain installations, the organizers are asking architects not only to propose ideas but also to serve as, or partner with, active operators who can sustain the vision in practice through programming, maintenance, and iteration.
Floodgate Art Museum (水闸美术馆). Image © 田方方
The need for architect-operators is real: many projects see their design intentions diluted once day-to-day operations take over. The Tainan Art Museum by Shigeru Ban was conceived to fuse museum and park into a single, porous ensemble. The scheme invited free movement between galleries and garden, with interior “white boxes” extending outward as stepped terraces so thresholds would dissolve—a park stroll could become an encounter with art, and a museum visit could spill naturally outdoors. In operation, however, cross-access has been sealed; the museum and garden now function as parallel yet separate realms. Each performs on its own terms, but the synergy that animated the original concept is notably diminished.
Long You’s pivot acknowledges that risk and hopes to position architects as long-term stewards, aligning authorship with use so installations evolve with their communities rather than calcifying after opening. Hoping to keep emerging and young practices involved beyond initial design—curating programs, overseeing operations, monitoring behaviour and wear, and iterating details—folds operations into the design process itself. This creates learning loops, continuous improvement, and contributions back into the system. It also points to a more durable contract between client, public, and architect: medium- to long-term engagement that sustains projects and stabilises practice. Instead of the solitary “master” who delivers an icon and departs, the architect becomes an embedded partner—and at times the operator—of civic platforms that grow over time.
Artificial Tree (人造树). Image © 有限设计
Realm of Rice (稻之境). Image Courtesy of Courtesy of FengyuzhuStewardship as Design: Curation and Programmes that Keep Architecture Alive
Architects are increasingly positioned not only to design urban space, but to operate it. The example of the Hu Shi Guang Art Eco Site suggests a shift from making singular objects to convening programmes that test ideas in public, fold operations into design, and return lessons to the next iteration. In this mode, the city becomes a living laboratory: streets, river edges, and residual sites host cycles of prototyping, use, observation, and adjustment. The architect’s remit expands to curation, governance, maintenance, and measurement—aligning authorship with daily life so projects remain legible, adaptable, and socially grounded.
Under-Bridge Loop (桥下循环). Image Courtesy of Courtesy of Fengyuzhu
If the profession embraces this role, our interaction with the city may evolve as well. Success is tracked not only by completion and images, but by participation rates, hours of occupation, environmental comfort, repairability, and the local value generated over time. Cross-subsidised operating models, clear stewardship plans, and co-designed programming keep cultural ambitions viable beyond opening day. Rather than delivering an icon and departing, the architect stays in the loop as a long-term partner—editing, hosting, and renewing spaces so they continue to hold meaning as the city evolves.
Pavilion on the Rock (岩上亭). Image Courtesy of Courtesy of Fengyuzhu
This article is part of the ArchDaily Topics: Architecture Without Limits: Interdisciplinarity and New Synergies. Every month we explore a topic in-depth through articles, interviews, news, and architecture projects. We invite you to learn more about our ArchDaily Topics. And, as always, at ArchDaily, we welcome the contributions of our readers; if you want to submit an article or project, contact us.