The Ghost-City, Kangbashi, Ordos, China

The Ghost City

Ordos, China

ANG | GARCIA | GARLAND | MENDOZA

CONTENT

TERM DEFINITION INTRODUCTIONHISTORYPLANNING and DESIGNTOUR OF THE CITYCASE STUDIES (2)SUCCESS or FAILURE

ANG| GARCIA| GARLAND | MENDOZA - Ordos City

TERM DEFINITION• GHOST TOWN is an abandoned village, town, or city,

usually one that contains substantial visible remains.• HOUSING BUBBLE is a run-up in housing prices

fueled by demand, speculation and exuberance.


• GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (GDP) is the monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced

within a country's borders in a specific time period.

INTRODUCTION Ordos Inner Mongolia, China


ORDOS CITY, CHINA

• One of the twelve major subdivisions of Inner Mongolia, China. It lies within the Ordos Loop of the Yellow River.

• Although mainly rural, Ordos is administered as a prefecture-level city.

• Its administrative seat is situated in Dongsheng which had a population of 582,544 inhabitants as of the 2010 census.


ORDOS CITY, CHINA

• Another Banner is being urbanized quickly around the city of Ejin Horo with about 251,894 inhabitants at the 2010 census which is the seat of Ordos Airport.

• Ordos is known for its lavish government projects. – New Ordos City, a large city with abundant infrastructure, seldom used by

residents and frequently described as a "ghost city“. It hosted the 2012 Miss World Final.


Kangbashi Ordos Inner Mongolia, China


BASIC INFORMATIONArea size: 137Planned: 2003Construction Started: 2004Population Statistics:

2014 – 20,000 people2016 – 100,000 people

China’s urbanization strategy: “We'll build it and we'll make

them come.”


KANGBASHI, ORDOS, CHINAHaving been called a modern ghost town, a stillborn city, and a failed utopia, Ordos Kangbashi has been the recipient of an ongoing stream of criticism from myriad international media sources. The majority of this coverage has posited the place as a shining example of whatever Chinese financial crisis is the flavor of the day: housing bubbles, municipal debt, over-supply, bankrupt developers, as well as nefarious plots by local officials to artificially boost GDP to get promoted.


FAULTSScale of the place is just TOO LARGE– STREETS: 40 meters wide, – INTERSECTIONS: are nearly a half a kilometer apart. – The city has one of the largest public squares on the

planet running down the center of it, which is nearly as large as Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.

– This physically separates people from the places they work at, shops, entertainment facilities, public amenities, as well as each other.


HISTORYANG| GARCIA| GARLAND | MENDOZA - Ordos City

This province in northern China is located in the vicinity of the desert and populated once by Genghis Khan and his heirs.


Although horses have disappeared from Ordos landscape, or at least from its streets, they remain an important aspect of the local culture, and statues representing horses galloping, fighting, etc. pullulate the city. Even the motorsport Ordos International Circuit follows in plan the shape of a horse at full gallop.


HOW DID ORDOS CITY COME TO BE?


Poor place, with a basic wool and textiles industry


ORDOS, KANGBASHI

It is so rich with natural resources

that the municipality’s GDP is

one of the highest in the

country


gas, coal and rare earth metals

ORDOS, KANGBASHI

It began in the early 2000’s, with the beginning of a great

Mongolian coal rush.ANG| GARCIA| GARLAND | MENDOZA - Ordos City

Private mining companies poured into the green Inner Mongolian steppe lands,

Pock-marking the landscape with enormous opencast holes or underground tunnels.


Local farmers sold their land to the miners, and became instantly rich and jobs flourished.


PLANNING AND DESIGNANG| GARCIA| GARLAND | MENDOZA - Ordos City

DESIGN CONCEPTIt was highly influenced by Soviet design, where, according to Hajjar, “the citizens have to feel really small compared to the city, they have to be afraid of the city. The place of the pedestrian is not that important, it’s the importance of the city and of the power of the city [that matters].”


DESIGN CONCEPTIf Kangbashi could be called a

tragedy it’s not one of urbanization, but urban design. The new city’s design is highly conceptual, and adequately hit on what Ordos’ local officials wanted for their new city. The plan was unabashedly grandiose, larger than life, and spoke of the power of its creators at every turn.


PLANNING CONCEPT• The plan called for the city to be oriented

with the natural features in the landscape, running parallel with the mountains, with the central park extending from the northwest to the southeast, ending at a series of reservoirs.

• The government building was place at the “head” of the new city, the central plaza was its “body,” and the housing blocks that extended out to the sides were its “wings.” The idea was not only to create a new city for people to live in but to be awed by. The place was made to be a masterpiece, a trophy on the shelf of the officials who built it.


The new district of Kangbashi was planned between three water reservoirs, with a central business district following a layout that is in no way less impressive than the monumentality of socialist soviet cities.




POSSIBLE FLOOR PLANS OF TRANSITIONAL TOWER: MIGRANT HOUSING VS. MIDDLE-CLASS HOUSING


TOUR OF THE CITY



Linyinlu Square

Flower Garden



Residential Houses


Apartments


CBD-Central Business District


Schools

Kangbashi Hospital


Ordos Library


Ordos Sports Center Stadium by China Architecture Design and Research Group



Ordos Sports Center Stadium by China Architecture Design and Research Group

Ordos Dongsheng Stadium by China Architecture and Design Research Group


Ordos Grand Theatre:





Mosque of Ordos

Tree Planting Project


Fountain Show


ORDOS 101Project launched by artist AI Weiwei

It was a project to invite 100 architects to propose architectural fantasy housing for a vacant riverside site.

The Art Museum is the only completed project. None of the other 99 projects has been completed. Just five building shells lie in the desert sun.

The municipality decided to think big.

It laid out plans for a “New Ordos” just a few kilometers south of the old city, which was meant to be a futuristic cultural, political, and economical center for the region featuring state-of-the-art

architecture.


Plan for Ordos 100 project. Masterplanned by Ai Weiwei and curated by Herzog and de Meuron


Ordos Restaurant by Yazdani Studio

An abandoned villa by HFF ‘s Dunehouse from Ai Weiwei and Herzog & de Meuron's Ordos 100 project


Ordos Art Hotel by EXH Design



CASE STUDIES : LIGHT AND VENTILATION

Ordos Museum


Project detailsLocation: Ordos, China

Typology: MuseumSite Area: 27,760 sqm

Building Area: 41, 227 sqmBuilding Height: 40 m

Architectural design: MAD Architects

Façade: MetallicANG| GARCIA| GARLAND | MENDOZA - Ordos City




Structural System


SECTIONS 1-2


The outside of the building is characterized by its brown, polished, resilient cladding, almost a geological crust. From the inside it is an airy, bright, lactescent cave.


Ordos Art Museum


Architects: DnALocation: Ordos, Inner Mongolia, ChinaArchitect in Charge: DnADesign Team: Tiantian Xu， Guillaume Aubry， Yingnan ChenBuilding area: 270 sqmDesign year: 2005-2006Client: Ordos Jiangyuan Water Engineering Co. Ltd Area: 420.0 sqmProject Year: 2007


The space is conceived as one uninterrupted room with a series of openings absorbing natural light while offering cinematic views of the raw surroundings; the art exhibition mingles with the natural landscape that becomes an integrated experience for views.




Ordos Art Museum is the first building of Ordos’ new civic center on a stretch of sand dunes along the lake that is dedicated as a “public corridor” with art and cultural facilities. This 29,000 sq.ft. of exhibition and research space is distributed within an undulating form with a central span lifting clear off the ground, suggesting a desert viper winding over the dunes.


MODES OF TRANSPORTATION• Car• Bus • Train• Plane


LIVABLE CITY-People-Businesses-Vital innards


REASONS BEHIND EMPTY CITIES1. They’re not actually finished yet2. They were built too early3. They were built to encourage land sales4. Developers must build immediately 5. The chicken-or-egg scenario6. The housing that’s bought by people with no intention of living in it7. The housing that’s bought for the future8. There’s a shortage of “Economically Affordable Homes”9. Local government just isn’t ready to support a mature population


Conclusion: the ghosts of cities yet to come

Not every mining city can successfully be transformed into the next

boomtown. Not every blank canvas of countryside can be painted with an

urban landscape. But, given enough time, most of China’s new cities and

towns will develop sufficiently to become real urban entities.


COMMON MISCONCEPTION“At the beginning almost nobody moved to Kangbashi since there were just places to work and no communal facilities, so people went back and forth between Kangbashi and Dongsheng every workday. It needed time to build this new city, and schools and hospitals were completed two or three years later. That’s why the population was very small for those first five years (2009), and this was also the period many media outlets reported Kangbashi as a ghost town.”

Xing Su (Ordos native),currently studying urban planning

at the University of Waterloo in Canada


http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/23/chinas-largest-ghost-city-is-now-90-full-but-theres-a-twist/#7a0dad5b76f4

GREAT NEWS!


http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/23/chinas-largest-ghost-city-is-now-90-full-but-theres-a-twist/#7a0dad5b76f4

ORDOS IS ACTUALLY

ALMOST FULL


FINAL VERDICTSUCCESSPopulation has risen– Optimistic community (HOPE)• Assumptions behind failure• But despite being a modern-day ghost

town, the Chinese government considers new Ordos to be a success. And for good reason, since the main purpose of the Kangabashi district was to make coal businessmen buy new property in the area. In that concern Kangabashi is indeed a success, because all the homes and offices in the new district are sold out. It’s just that no one lives in them.


FAILURE– Planning– Media – Housing bubbles– Municipal debt– Over-supply– Bankrupt developers– The billions of dollars invested

in the project did not break even due to extremely high property prices. Its property prices are 2nd to Shanghai and people did not see the point in moving into “Old Ordos”

THAT’S ALL !


SITIO SONG SONG (UYUGAN, BATANES)QUONSET HUTS (SUBIC, ZAMBALES)

PHILIPPINES “GHOST TOWNS”Defined as abandoned/ haunted.

CCP

REFERENCES• http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17390729• http://www.dezeen.com/2016/01/10/ordos-a-failed-utopia-china-raphael-olivier-photo-essay/• http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/19/an-update-on-chinas-largest-ghost-city-w

hat-ordos-kangbashi-is-like-today/#38170e31e083• http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/23/chinas-largest-ghost-city-is-now-90-full-b

ut-theres-a-twist/2/• https://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-cities/• http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094511,00.html• http://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-worlds-largest-ghost-city-ordos-china-1541512511• http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/04/architecture/china-ordos-ghost-town/• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordos_(city)• http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/19/an-update-on-chinas-largest-ghost-city-w

hat-ordos-kangbashi-is-like-today/4/#559317192830

• https://2012patriot.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/chinas-ghost-cities/• http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/ordos-chinas-modern-ghost-town.html• http://thehiat.blogspot.com/2012/02/modern-ghost-town-of-kangbashi.html• http://flatrock.org.nz/fancybox/4013/

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-17390729

http://www.dezeen.com/2016/01/10/ordos-a-failed-utopia-china-raphael-olivier-photo-essay/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/19/an-update-on-chinas-largest-ghost-city-what-ordos-kangbashi-is-like-today/#38170e31e083

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/19/an-update-on-chinas-largest-ghost-city-what-ordos-kangbashi-is-like-today/#38170e31e083

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/23/chinas-largest-ghost-city-is-now-90-full-but-theres-a-twist/2/

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/23/chinas-largest-ghost-city-is-now-90-full-but-theres-a-twist/2/

https://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-cities/

https://www.wired.com/2016/02/kai-caemmerer-unborn-cities/

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094511,00.html

http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1975397_2094511,00.html

http://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-worlds-largest-ghost-city-ordos-china-1541512511

http://gizmodo.com/welcome-to-the-worlds-largest-ghost-city-ordos-china-1541512511

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/04/architecture/china-ordos-ghost-town/

http://edition.cnn.com/2016/04/04/architecture/china-ordos-ghost-town/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ordos_(city)

http://www.forbes.com/sites/wadeshepard/2016/04/19/an-update-on-chinas-largest-ghost-city-what-ordos-kangbashi-is-like-today/4/#559317192830



https://2012patriot.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/chinas-ghost-cities/

https://2012patriot.wordpress.com/2011/06/17/chinas-ghost-cities/

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/ordos-chinas-modern-ghost-town.html

http://www.odditycentral.com/pics/ordos-chinas-modern-ghost-town.html

http://thehiat.blogspot.com/2012/02/modern-ghost-town-of-kangbashi.html

http://thehiat.blogspot.com/2012/02/modern-ghost-town-of-kangbashi.html

http://flatrock.org.nz/fancybox/4013/

http://flatrock.org.nz/fancybox/4013/

RESPONSES• R 1 (Yoda)• R 2 (Prince)• R 3 (Katniss)• R 4 (Scientist)• R 5 (Ellen)• R 6 (Hand)• R 7 (Dude 1)• R 8 (Dude 2)• R 9 (Robinsons)• R 10 (Robert P)


Education

The Ghost-City, Kangbashi, Ordos, China