About the authors: Robert Mangurian and Mary-Ann Ray are principals of Studio Works Architects in Los Angeles, teach at SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) and the University of Michigan, and are co-founders of BASE Studios in the Urban Village of Caochangdi in Beijing. Their current interests have led them to work on urban change in China, especially as seen in Urban Villages such as Caochangdi and the potential for change in the New Socialist Countryside and Villages. Mangurian and Ray are architects, authors, and designers, and were awarded the Chrysler Design Award in 2001 for Excellence and Innovation in an ongoing body of work in a design field. In 2008, they were awarded the Stirling Prize for the Memorial Lecture on the City by the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the London School of Economics.

Caochangdi, one of more than 300 urban villages in the city of Beijing, tells a specific story about itself and its mostly illegal residents (including farmers, floaters, taxi drivers, and world class artists), but it also has embedded within it both the problems and the possibilities of a new urban space redefining the city of Beijing at this pivotal point in human history when cities make up half of the world’s population. The authors, who live and work in Caochangdi, dissect the multiple phenomena that form this dynamic urban condition.