Photo by Cristiano Corte. Published on August 31, 2012.

Darryl Chen, co-founder of Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, in association with Hawkins\Brown is one of the exhibitors at the British Pavilion for the 13th Venice Architecture Biennale this year running from 29 August to 25 November.

Photo by Cristiano Corte. Published on August 31, 2012.

The work is featured as one of ten proposals in Venice Takeaway, an exhibition at the British Pavilion organised by the British Council, aiming to inject new ideas into the UK. The exhibition creates a platform to discuss what makes good architecture. Chen contributes to the debate by speculating how a village in China may hold the key to revolutionising planning in the UK. Quoting Mao Zedong, imagining Ai Weiwei as an urban strategist, and citing Communist China as a model of flexible governance, Chen suggests handing revolutionary power back to local people while co-opting the entrepreneurial skills of Richard Branson to create a model of a New [Socialist] Village for the UK.

Photo by Cristiano Corte. Published on August 31, 2012.

At the heart of Chen’s research is Caochangdi, a thriving diverse community where bottom-up opportunism meets top-down regulation. The village is, in government parlance, an atypical ‘new socialist village’ and an anomaly amongst the city’s singularly masterplanned mega-developments. Taking advantage of the gaps between the government’s evolving planning laws, the village’s growth has been subversively driven by the survival instincts of local residents and the bohemian opportunism of artists. Between them, they have redefined what a village can be and look like.

Photo by Cristiano Corte. Published on August 31, 2012.

Chen’s proposal is timely: the UK coalition government’s Localism Act to “disperse power more widely in Britain today” (David Cameron, 2010) is the biggest opportunity in decades to rethink the role of planning, yet pilot schemes coming to light now are already mired in doubt and a lack of ambition. Citing Caochangdi as a shining example of what is achievable, Chen poses a provocative question: could China teach the UK how to plan?

Photo by Cristiano Corte. Published on August 31, 2012.

Taking inspiration from a renowned scroll dating from the Song Dynasty and Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution-era ‘Little Red Book’, Chen has created a 5-metre long hand-crafted scroll printed in Caochangdi and exhibits it alongside 20,000 mass-produced ‘propaganda’ booklets detailing his research, to be handed out to biennale visitors. The scroll features intricately detailed illustrations of scenarios that envisage a UK village adopting the principles at play in Caochangdi, to create a new kind of village that fosters a uniquely British brand of entrepreneurialism.

Photo by Cristiano Corte. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, Hawkins\Brown. Published on August 31, 2012.

Tomorrow’s Thoughts Today, Hawkins\Brown. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.

Photo by Jack Hobhouse. Published on August 31, 2012.