Professor of Architecture and Cultural Design

Director of Bartlett International Development

Design Tutor Unit 10

Research Interests

The critical enquiries of my research aim to widen the cultural discourse and explorations in architectural design. My architecture is spatial storytelling and employs narratives in creating visions and innovative architecture, landscape and urban design focusing on interpretations of cultural programmes. The primary focus is in the physical potential and the intellectual relationships between the “drawing”, the “assembly” and architecture as “built cultural assemblage”. Like Duchamp, Schwitters and Cornell who made their art by assembling found objects, I conceptualise spatial programmes and architecture as cultural identities through the recycling of materials and the reconfiguration of the everyday. My narrative-based investigations vary in scale, programme and cultural demand; some being academic research-based projects (Virtually Venice, Multi-Cultural, How Green is your Garden? and Sins), whilst others are real professional architecture competitions. The academic projects are “test beds” for ideologies and spatial speculations, while the more restricted briefs of competitions are vehicles to implement the abstractly tested ideas. Drawings are key in my design explorations; they narrate my speculative visions of sculptural and programmatic complexities. The drawings in Virtually Venice employed all forms of manual paper manipulation and assemblage, a technique unique in the age of the digital media. My research technique of paper assemblage has received wide spread acclaim including four awards from the Royal Academy of Arts and placement in the permanent collection of the Victoria and Albert Museum. I have authored six books based on my architecture design research, while the four books I edited were investigations into the potential of innovative architecture, utopian ideals and unorthodox methodologies of spatial explorations.

Smartcities + Eco-warriors (2007 – 2009)

What is a Smartcity? A vision of how the city of the 21st century might appear if we are serious about living sustainably. Current discourse on sustainability appears to focus either on the technical aspects of ecological design at the scale of individual buildings or establishes the general principles for planning urban environments; the thesis attempts to address what the spatial and phenomenological implications are when sustainable design is applied to a city, what new hybrid typologies of programme and landscape are birthed, and the role that we as citizens will play in the production of a relevant social space. A central component of the smartcity is urban agriculture and the establishment of an ecological symbiosis between nature and built form. Over human history, agrarian economies have been replaced by industrial economies that have in turn been supplanted by post-industrial economies. The smartcity postulates that the next and final stage of evolution can only be a circular economy that subsumes agriculture, energy, and industry into co-dependency and self-perpetuation. The holistic construct of the Smartcity is developed through a series of international case studies, some commissioned by government organisations, others speculative and polemic.

Virtually Venice (2004)

In Virtually Venice, the seven projects: Par Xien Gou Hai, The Lido, Giardini, San Marco, Fortuna Pozzo-Pozza, San Michele and The Four Seasons collectively celebrated and added to the connections between Venice and China. It began with the legendary story of Marco Polo’s meeting with the Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan. In these portrayals of how Khan might have imagined Venice after their conversations, the city took on aspects of the East and reconfigured itself in new architectural forms. With the two protagonists metaphorically representing East and West, this research investigated the differences and similarities in cultures and identities. This project, commissioned by the British Council UK for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2004 and exhibited in the British Pavilion, is CJ Lim’s most celebrated piece of research architecture as “built cultural assemblage”.

Multi-Cultural (2004 - 2006)

Ethnic diversity contributed significantly to Britain’s economic, social, and cultural development. Immigration is not only a London story, multi-cultural communities are now affecting New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Toronto to name a few. The emphasis has shifted from issues connected with new settlers, to focusing on the needs and contributions of local-born minorities. The current changes raise important questions about how cities are able to handle multiculturalism and prepare for this wider integration.Here, the architect’s role is to develop social-spatial proposals, configuring spaces through the appreciation of local communities and their cultures, informed legislation and local politics. The five research projects included the redevelopment of Gordon Square as a multicultural foyer for UCL’s global citizens and London’s Soho commemorating the arrival of early immigrants and its current multi cultural communities.

How Green is your Garden? (2000 - 2003)

Ethnic diversity contributed significantly to Britain’s economic, social, and cultural development. Immigration is not only a London story, multi-cultural communities are now affecting New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Toronto to name a few. The emphasis has shifted from issues connected with new settlers, to focusing on the needs and contributions of local-born minorities. The current changes raise important questions about how cities are able to handle multiculturalism and prepare for this wider integration.Here, the architect’s role is to develop social-spatial proposals, configuring spaces through the appreciation of local communities and their cultures, informed legislation and local politics. The five research projects included the redevelopment of Gordon Square as a multicultural foyer for UCL’s global citizens and London’s Soho commemorating the arrival of early immigrants and its current multi cultural communities.

Sins (2000 - 2001)

The projects were driven by the Seven Cardinal Sins - pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Appositely composed of seven innocuous-seeming projects (Kiss + Tell, Double or Quits, Arena, Epicurean, Twentyfourseven, Sodom + Gomorrah, Tonic), they began to question the traditional canon of building typologies. It suggested the possibility that sin may not be intent or outcome, but a spatial relative. Or at the very least be formed and facilitated by an infrastructure of vice. Part manifesto, part design and part narrative, the projects reflected the ambiguous and ill-defined nature of their unseen protagonist, playing with our prejudices and preconceptions. They combined the sublime with the ridiculous, the biblical with cyberspace, the immutability of age-old sin with modern-day communications technology.

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Selected Key Outputs

CJ Lim, Smartcities + Eco-warriors (Design Research/Principle Investigator, Book/Author, 2010)

CJ Lim, Virtually Venice (Design Research/Principle Investigator, Book/Author, 2006)

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CJ Lim, Olympic Paris 2012 Landmark Competition (Design Research/Principle Investigator, 2004)

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CJ Lim, How Green is your Garden? (Design Research/Principle Investigator, Book/Author, 2003)

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CJ Lim, Realms of Impossibility (1 output comprising 3 volumes)

CJ Lim, (2002), Realms of Impossibility: Air, Lim,C., Liu,E. (ed.) Wiley-Academy. ISBN: 0 470 84439 6.

CJ Lim, (2002), Realms of Impossibility: Ground, Lim,C., Liu,E. (ed.) Wiley-Academy. ISBN: 0 470 84442 6.

CJ Lim, (2002), Realms of Impossibility: Water, Lim,C., Liu,E. (ed.) Wiley-Academy. ISBN: 0 470 84441 8.

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CJ Lim, (2007), Guangming Eco-city, Shenzhen, China.

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[from Bartlett.ucl.ac.uk]

Modern methods of agriculture have led to cities growing out of control and reducing the available agricultural land, threatening the sustainability of our food system. The previous mutually sustaining relationships of animals, humans and the land have been lost with the progress of industry.

The Smartcity, an ecological symbiosis between nature, society and the built form is the innovative response to contemporary problems from one of the world’s leading urban design and architectural thinkers. Addressing the problems of unchecked city growth, the idea of the Smartcity questions whether we could begin to live once again from first principles, focusing in on the inhabitants of the city.

The holistic construct of the Smartcity is developed through a series of international case studies, some commissioned by government organisations, others speculative and polemic. Reframing the way people think about urban green space and the evolution of cities, CJ Lim and Ed Liu explore how the reintegration of agriculture in urban environments can cultivate new spatial practices and social cohesion in addition to food for our tables.

Representing an emerging architectural voice in matters of environmental and social sustainability, Smartcities and Eco-warriors is a long overdue treatment of the subject from a designer’s perspective, and is essential reading for practitioners and students in the fields of architecture, urban planning, environmental engineering, landscape design, agriculture and sociology. An inspiration to government agencies and NGOs dealing with climate change, it also resonates with anyone concerned about cities, energy conservation and the future of food. [from Amazon.com]