Rural Urban Framework's Incremental Housing Strategy for the Ger Districts of Ulaanbaatar Project Archive 「城村架構」烏蘭巴托蒙古包區房屋增量策略項目檔案

In 2005, the Chinese government unveiled a plan to urbanise one half of its rural population by 2030, affecting a staggering 350 million individuals.  Shortly thereafter , Joshua Bolchover and John Lin established Rural Urban Framework (RUF), a collaborative research and design initiative based at the University of Hong Kong.  Their mission has been to initiate a shift towards new models of rural development, pivoting away from a predominantly urban-centric approach.  RUF’s design projects offer innovative strategies for rural villages that emphasise enhanced public spaces, community programmes, and environmental considerations.  Over the course of fifteen projects in different villages, RUF conducted research investigating various approaches to urbanisation, desertification, pollution challenges, and sustainability needs in these traditional nomad settlements. 

This project archive contains approximately 300 digital photographs, diagrams, drawings, models, and documents associated with the ger districts in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. Historically inhabited by nomads living in traditional portable dwellings known as gers or  yurts, settlements in these districts experienced an influx of people in the 1990s that led to gradual expansion. The archive, spanning the period 2014 to 2022, comprises numerous materials that document RUF's design and research processes, ranging from urban analyses to specific construction projects  and community engagement activities. Highlights include drawings and video documentation of the Ger Plug-in Housing Prototype (2016), the Ger Plug-in 1.0 (2016), the Ger Plug-in 2.0 (2021), and the Ger Plug-in 3.0 (2022), as well as resources such as the Energy Efficient Design Build pamphlet, Types of Housing cards , and the Incremental Development Manual. 

The following items related to the Rural Urban Framework’s projects are available to explore in the M+ Collections: 2024.461, 2024.462, 2024.463, 2024.464, 2024.465, 2024.466, 2024.467, 2024.468, 2024.506, 2024.507, 2024.508, 2024.509, 2024.510, 2024.511, 2024.512, 2024.513, 2024.514, 2024.515, 2024.516, 2024.517, 2024.518, 2024.519, 2024.520, 2024.521, 2024.522, 2024.552, 2024.554, 2024.555, and 2024.556.

M+ is committed to preserving, organising, and describing the collection archives in keeping with the highest international standards. As sections of the archives are catalogued, they will be made available on the M+ Collections website.