Beyond Growth

EDAW photographers are making their way through some of the world’s most vibrant urban contexts in a whirlwind trip capturing imagery for the EDAW book Beyond Growth. An initiative of Asia and its ‘EDAW-in’ group, Beyond Growth is a vivid exploration of the most urbanized corner of the world – an arc of geography that spans from Shanghai to Mumbai to Dubai. This is one of several photo journeys by EDAW’s photographers. Dixi Carrillo captured construction in Beijing in late 2007, and David – the flavor of Mongkok (the world’s most densely populated square kilometer). Both will return to Asia this year for further photography alongside similar lines.

This emerging world is experiencing history’s most dramatic physical transformation with intriguing ramifications for the larger world’s natural and social environments. It is a part of the world defined by massive urbanization, vast migrations of people, the world’s tallest buildings, Olympian construction, magical reclamations, and barebones poverty alongside ever-more ostentatious wealth. It is redefining the way designers/planners practice in new and interesting ways, stretching our notions of scale, long-term environmental vision and social stability. This is a place with more than 170 cities that have more than 1 million residents. It is a place with hundreds of Louis Vuitton stores, almost all of them new, but with a floating population of millions of migrant construction workers from Lahore to Lanzhou, all of whom are far from home. It is a place with about 3.7 billion people, more than 12 times the population of the United States.

EDAW has been practicing in this place for many years now, and our links are deepening here and our geographic scope is widening to take on new Asian societies. Beyond Growth is both a celebration and documentation of the built transformation we are witnessing here as practitioners.

-Daniel Elsea, EDAW