A Hongkongese architecture firm promotes social dialogue in the Chinese countryside

Rural Urban Framework (RUF) is a non-lucrative architecture agency, created by John Lin and Joshua Bolchover in Hong Kong in 2006. RUF recently rebuilt the Mulan primary school in Guangdong province and worked on houses in Jintai village, in Sichuan province. Those houses, quickly rebuilt after the 2008 earthquake, collapsed again due to aftershocks. This has pushed RUF to propose new prototypes of anti-seismic buildings. The agency has furthermore won the Curry Stone Design Prize.

They carry out their projects with a minimal budget and raw materials. Their main goal is to stimulate Chinese rural areas affected by rural flight, by stressing social dialogue with local actors. RUF renovates houses and public spaces in a functional and aesthetical way, with a two-sided space construction approach.