ænæmˈniːsɪs
recollection, especially of a supposed previous existence.

Today's Chinese cities were borne from a blank page, built upon the gray rubble and flattened mountains of what came before. Their form is pervasive and has quickly become familiar, made up of repetitive housing bars contained within gated megablocks, bracketed by outward-facing services and divided into neat grids by wide, impassable boulevards.

In its destructive emergence, this kind of city has left resilient entities in its wake, particularly the endangered urban villages which survive to this day in a changing environment despite overwhelming odds. Their history, social structure and hierarchical organization of open spaces are infinitely more successful than the ill-used public spaces, social segregation and lack of memory that plague the new city.

The temporal masterplan is based on the geometry of the existing urban fabric and defines potentials for both the rebuilding of more connected and mixed-use residential complexes, as well as more appropriate open spaces to encourage social cohesion.

At a larger scale, the city's mobility will be streamlined through the bundling of new transportation infrastructure which will connect to the new constructions throughout Huilongguan. Tram lines, car-pooling centers and a new emphasis on smaller-scale, short-distance vehicles will drastically improve the congested conditions of present-day Huilongguan, whilst encouraging social interaction within the mobility-spaces of the city.

In its reconstruction effort, the project acknowledges and integrates the fact that the city cannot be planned simply as a grid of zones in black and white upon a blank page. By weaving both potentials and the existing fabric into its strategy, phasing will continuously express an evolving urban entity rather than an instantaneous city. Beyond this regeneration of interstitial open spaces and social connectors, by growing from an existing context over time, a new temporality will emerge.