Nantou Old Town

Nantou Old Town in Shenzhen brings together ancestral halls, gates, small shops, housing, workshops, and public spaces within a dense and changing urban fabric. Once an administrative and cultural centre of the region, it now reads as a layered neighbourhood where historic structures and everyday contemporary life coexist.

In 2017, the site became the main focus of the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism/Architecture, drawing renewed attention to the role of urban villages in China. Rather than treating Nantou only as heritage, the biennale framed it as a living condition shaped by density, adaptation, informal use, and social diversity.

The project is defined by this coexistence: preservation and transformation, planned and unplanned spaces, old and new structures.