Mass-Customised Cities

Tom Verebes is the Creative Director of OCEAN CN, a Hong Kong-based design consultancy network. He is Associate Professor of Architecture, and former Associate Dean (Teaching & Learning) at the University of Hong Kong. Until January 2009, Tom Verebes was co-Director of the acclaimed post-professional masters' level Design Research Lab, at the Architectural Association in London, where he had taught since 1996. He has directed the AA Shanghai Summer School for nine consecutive years (2007-2015).?The design work of Verebes' practice and teaching has been exhibited internationally at over 50 venues, and he has contributed to over 140 publications. His recent publications include Masterplanning the Adaptive City: Computational Urbanism in the Twenty-first Century (Routledge, 2013), New Computational Paradigms in Architecture (Tsinghua University Press, 2012), and a 368-page monograph and DRLTEN: A Design Research Compendium (AA Publications, 2008). He has lectured on his work across Europe, North America, Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

• Editorial 05Helen CastleAbout the Guest-Editor 06Tom VerebesIntroduction Cities and Their Specificities: Standards, Customs and the Making of 21st-Century Urbanity 08Tom VerebesMass Customisation and Standardisation: An Urban Dialectic 18Martin Bressani Towards a Distinctive Urbanism: An Interview with Kenneth Frampton 24Tom VerebesMiesian Grids and the Domain of Ink 32Elena ManferdiniStandardising Heterogeneity: Public Housing and the Absent(ed) Architect 40Michael BellFrom Mass Customisation to Design ‘Democratisation’ 48Branko KolarevicOn Modelling Complexity and Urban Form 54M Christine BoyerSamsung Raemian Housing Masterplan, Haan River, Seoul, Korea: Contemporary Architecture Practice 60Hina Jamelle and Ali Rahim(In)formational Cities 64Neil LeachGrowth Typologies, Localities and Defamiliarisation: Experiments with Artificial Urbanism in Sichuan, Guangzhou and Beijing 70Jeffrey HuangShanghai Lilong Tower Urbanism, Shanghai, China: Rocker-Lange Architects 76Christian J LangePermanence and Change: An Interview with Mark Burry 80Donald BatesThe Repulse Bay Complex, Repulse Bay, Hong Kong: Davidclovers 86David Erdman and Clover LeeCatalytic Urbanism: The Role of Customised Design Solutions in Delivering Transformational Urban Change 92Elad EisensteinSecond Development Zone, Umekita Area, Osaka, Japan: OCEAN CN Consultancy Network 100Tom VerebesEngineering Urban Complexity: Bespoke Integrated Design 104Rob MayArchi-Union Architects, City of Breeze, Shenzhen Bay, Shenzhen, China 110Philip F YuanTechnological Transitions, Industrial Innovations and the Marching Chinese Urban Revolution: An Interview with Jerry Ku and Philip Vernon of E-Grow, Shanghai 114Tom VerebesAutomated Diversity: Gramazio Kohler Research New Morphologies of Vertical Urbanism 122Jan Willmann, Fabio Gramazio and Matthias KohlerCounterpoint Cities on the Edge of Chaos 128Colin FournierContributors 134