^{Plenary Panel members left to right: Timothy Johnson, NBBJ (Chair); Yansong Ma, MAD Architects; Winy Maas, MVRDV; Yan Meng, Urbanus; Patrik Schumacher, Zaha Hadid Architects; Jerry Yin, SOHO China Co. Ltd}

Ma Yansong was invited on October 18, 2016 as part of the Plenary Panel Discussion in this year’s CTBUH (Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat) International Conference hosted in Shenzhen, China. Along with Winy Maas, Yan Meng, Patrik Schumacher, and Jerry Yin the panel engaged in a conference discussion entitled “Tall Buildings and Context: Appropriate High-Rise Vernaculars”.

The session examined the contextualization of high rises and particularly “designing iconic tall buildings in China’s particular context"¹  During the discussion, Ma went on to elaborate that culture has been diversified, what's more important is how we picture the future. Architects should have the courage to take on experiments, and to envision the future.

 Ma further elaborated on the correlation between technology and the culture feature of architecture, stated, "To build a high-rise is no longer technically difficult, therefore we need to focus beyond technology, what this building can provide for the city, even the society, in terms of culture value." When discussing "green building", Ma mentioned, "Everybody is talking about green buildings in terms of technology, I think it's also important to focus on the emotional bond among human, nature and architecture.

Photo courtesy of http://ctbuh2016.com/conference-news/day-2/

¹ http://ctbuh2016.com/conference-news/day-2/