China seems to be at the peak of a refurbishment fever. Not only hutongs in historic downtowns, but abandoned industrial factories are becoming new tech or cultural hubs, and even buildings in the risk of collapse are refurbished to extend their lifespan. Why is this happening? Who is investing? How could this happen in a country where you cannot buy properties? In this edition of Editor's Talk, our editors from ArchDaily China share their thoughts on how in a fast-paced development process, such as the one China is going through, there is a refurbishment fever in its biggest cities. Nicolas Valencia: What’s happening in China that Use & Reuse seems to be a hot topic right now? Han Zhang: There are several reasons for this being a hot topic. The most important one being the slow down in release of land for development by the government to developers. In first-tier cities, there is no longer any public land being released for development, driving the market towards the refurbishment of the existing building stock. This is probably a reason that most people outside of China are unaware of. There are many motivations for this from the perspective of the government: cooling the housing bubble, lack of land in major cities, facing the serious issue of the low-quality building stock in China from the last 50 years.
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