rocker-lange blog

We are pleased to announce that Christian J. Lange will be delivering a lecture, alongside co-author Jason Carlow, as part of the Future Human Habitats Lecture Series 2025 at Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School. In this talk, Lange and Carlow will share insights from their recent book, Cities of Repetition: Hong Kong’s Private Housing Estates. The lecture will explore the urban logic, architectural patterns, and socio-spatial dynamics of Hong Kong’s large-scale residential developments, offering a critical lens on the city’s high-density living environments.

The lecture will be held on April 1st 2025 at 5:00pm in the lobby in Building H Future Human Habitats, Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School.

I am very happy to be part of the upcoming 1-Day symposium on AI in Sharjah, UAE. The Interrogating Intelligence in Artificial Architecture symposium will be hosted by AUS’s Department of Architecture on Sunday, March 9th.

Interrogating Intelligence in Artificial Architecture

Date: Sunday, March 9
Time: 1-4 p.m.
Venue: AUS Main Building, Lecture Hall B

As the efficacy of artificial intelligence develops and its use and application becomes more widespread, academia and industry are bracing for significant change. AI is not going away and it will get smarter. The question design educators are facing is not “if” but “how” to incorporate artificial intelligence into the classroom. CAAD is committed to lead the discussion on developing an ethical, generative pedagogy that propels our students toward cutting-edge design technologies and careers. This symposium intends to probe the limits and infinitude of machine learning’s impact on the built environment. The panel comprises leading researchers, educators, practitioners and industry leaders who have been using AI to rethink architectural design and production in various ways. The event will feature five presentations on the use of AI with regard to architectural design and education followed by a moderated discussion.

Presenters / Panelists:
Omran Alowais, Founder ARDH
George Guida, Architag / Harvard GSD
Anna Wanyu He, CEO of xKool / Lookx
Andy Shaw, Principal – AMA Design Dubai
Christian J. Lange, The University of Hong Kong

Moderator: Marcus Farr, American University of Sharjah

I am thrilled to share the upcoming book launch at HKU of “Cities of Repetition,” co-authored by Christian J. Lange. The book launch is part of HKU’s discussion series and will be held on 23 October, 2024.

Abstract:
Housing is one of the most fundamental elements of urban growth, and Hong Kong has for decades hosted some of the most intense built environments on the planet. The city’s urbanization has produced unparalleled living conditions in terms of building scale and density. Due to lack of space, topographical constraints, political conditions, and extremely high population density, Hong Kong became an incubator for the development of housing models and tower typologies for high-density living.

“Cities of Repetition provides a comprehensive graphic documentation and analysis of the largest Hong Kong housing estates built by private developers from the late 1960’s through the early 2000’s. The original drawings and diagrams illustrate and compare the ultra-dense, mass-produced, highly repetitive built environments in which hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents live. Drawings, diagrams and photographs not only display the immense scale of the housing estates within the city, but also present the hundreds of similarly planned housing units and their subtle differences. Detailed diagrams compare statistical information to show how the planning of these massive estates has evolved over the past decades to efficiently conform to building regulations. The publication and larger research project present a comprehensive analysis of the architectural and spatial realities of some of the most densely populated, urban environments ever built. Overall, the project presents an investigation and analysis of how hundreds of residential towers in Hong Kong, built in the final decades of the twentieth century, were shaped by regulatory and economic forces that radically standardized the city and limited architectural specificity in relation to context.

Fall 2024 Discussion Series
Date: 23 October, 2024
Time: 18:30-20:00
Venue: KB419, Knowles Building, The University of Hong Kong

Speakers:

Christian J. Lange, Associate Professor (Teaching), Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong

Jason F. Carlow, Associate Professor and Head of Department, Department of Architecture, American University of Sharjah

Discussants:
– Eunice Seng, Head, Department of Architecture, HKU
– Juan Du, Dean, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, University of Toronto
– Gary Chang, Managing Director, EDGE Design Institute Ltd. HKU MArch 1987⁠
– Lam Lai Shun, Associate, Thomas Chow Architects HKU MArch 2013

We’re pleased to share Christian J. Lange’s recent participation, alongside co-author Jason Carlow, in an international webinar exploring urban density and repetition in architecture, featuring a cross-cultural dialogue between New York and Hong Kong.

New York and Hong Kong are dense, intense vertical cities. In this truly international webinar, architects and educators Jason Carlow, a professor of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah, UAE and Christian Lange, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, described their joint study Cities of Repetition. Their book provides a powerful, comprehensive, graphic documentation and analysis of the largest Hong Kong housing estates built by private developers from the late 1960’s through the early 2000’s. Their images both illustrate the ultra-dense, mass-produced, highly-repetitive built environments in which hundreds of thousands of Hong Kong residents live but also capture the subtle differences in the variations of repetition.

After their presentation, the speakers were joined in dialogue with NYC housing scholar Nicholas Dagen Bloom, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning at Hunter College, and Museum director Carol Willis for a discussion of the comparative housing models of New York, Hong Kong, and other cities where repetition is both a development and a housing strategy.

We are happy to announce that Christian J. Lange will deliver a lecture as part of Shenzhen University’s ‘Contemporary Architecture Frontier’ 2024 | Artificial and Intelligence series.

The series of lectures for the ‘Contemporary Architecture Frontier’ postgraduate demonstration course at Shenzhen University, under the guidance of ‘International Vision’ and ‘Youth Vanguard’, has built a platform for theoretical construction and practical analysis of architectural design and urban construction in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Over the past three semesters, this course has focused on hot topics including history, philosophy, art, urban and rural renewal, digital cities, and Shenzhen experiments, inviting more than 70 high-level experts, scholars, and architects from domestic and international brother schools and the industry, and has held more than 20 frontier academic lectures and dialogues.

Against the backdrop of the industry where the future of architecture and cities has sparked widespread discussion, the theme of this semester’s course is ‘Artificial and Intelligence – Architecture Towards the Future’. On the one hand, it explores the academic frontier where emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, robots, and metaverse intersect with architecture. At the same time, it attempts to seek the genuine power of ‘anti-AI’ architectural design creation in the era of change, and plans to invite pioneering scholars from home and abroad to try to discuss the new ideas, new theories, and new practices in the architectural industry under the ‘planning design – construction interaction’ full industry chain from two distinct paths, focusing on generative design of urban architecture, intelligent or traditional construction methods, and information interaction between machines and humans or nature and humans, and to carry out knowledge sharing and academic speculation on the transformation of architecture and cities.

Lecture Abstract:

From Standard to Non-Standard Standards：New modes of production in Architecture

In Architecture, the concept of standardization has had a profound impact on the built environment. In a sense, standardization has been the essence of all economic developments and rapid urbanization since the early 20th century. However, computational tools and CAD/CAM methods developed in the past two decades have given architects a loophole to escape the mandate for standardization. Robotic fabrication and 3D printing are the latest ingredients in the modern toolbox of an architect, promising the world more specificity for the same price. The next big thing is already on the horizon. AI has emerged at light speed as a powerful new tool out of nowhere and is here to stay to shake up the world of Architecture as we know it. This lecture explores this transformation from standard solutions to a world that might give a renaissance to arts and crafts with a digital twist. Drawing from personal research conducted at the Robotic Fabrication Lab at HKU, the presentation delves into innovative projects that depart from traditional standardization approaches and try to offer new solutions with the aim towards non-standard Standards.

Lecture Time and Location:

Tuesday, May 21, 2024, at 19:00, Room C205
School of Architecture & Urban Planning,SZU
Address: 3688 Nanhai Avenue, Nanhai District,Shenzhen

Christian J. Lange will be giving a public research seminar at the Centre for Urban Studies and Urban Planning at HKU. The talk will be centered around the recent research on brick specials in the Robotic Fabrication Lab at HKU. All are welcome.

DATE:
14 November 2018 (Wednesday)
TIME:
13:00-14:00
VENUE:
Room 829,
Knowles Building
The University
of Hong Kong

Last week I was invited by Dassault Systèmes to participate in their event “Design in the age of experience” at Milan Design Week (MDW), aka Salone del Mobile. Amazing line-up of speakers, including Kengo Kuma and Daan Roosegarde. Very happy that I was able to participate.

For more info on the event, please use the following link:
https://blogs.3ds.com/perspectives/mdw_day-1/

Christian J. Lange with his colleague Jason F. Carlow will present a lecture entitled „Plan Voisin to Mei Foo | Cities of Repetition” as part of the French May lecture series at the Consulate General of France in Hong Kong. The lecture will present research work of the two speakers that focuses on large scale private housing estates in Hong Kong.

Date: 21/6/2014 2:30 – 4:30
Location: Salle Segalen, Consulate General of France in Hong Kong and Macau, 25/F, Admiralty, Center Tower II, 18 Harcourt Road, Hong Kong

For more information please visit: http://www.frenchmay.com/en/programmes/from-paris-to-hong-kong

Book Launch for: Verebes, T. Masterplanning the Adaptive City: Computational Urbanism in the Twenty-first Century (Routledge:2013)

2 October 2013
19:00-20:30
The University of Hong Kong
Department of Architecture
VENUE:　CYP P4, Chong Yuet Ming Building

Organisers: Thomas Tsang, Tom Verebes
Presenters: David Erdman, Gao Yan, Christian J. Lange, Matthew Pryor, Tom Verebes
Moderator: Juan Du

Schedule:
– Introduction to: Masterplanning the Adaptive City: Computational Urbanism in the Twenty-first Century, Tom Verebes
– Matthew Pryor
– Christian J. Lange
– Gao Yan
– David Erdman
– Panel Discussion with all presenters, Moderated by Juan Du

Christian J. Lange and Ingeborg M. Rocker will present their paper “Serial Architectures, Systems of Multiplicities and Adaptability” at the upcoming ICAMA 2013 conference. The international conference on Adaptation and Movement in Architecture will be held at Ryerson University, Toronto Canada during October 10-12 2013.

For more information please visit: http://www.icama2013.com//