In this country, an architect has to do a lot of different works, or at least know a lot about other areas of a development: planning, marketing, architecture, engineering, construction, etc. Because most of China’s developers are not very experienced, so do their assistants/managers/consultants, they have to rely on the architect to put different things together. Only a large international design team can provide this kind of service.
In 2012, for the very first time in over 5,000 years of China’s history, the urban population surpassed that of the rural countryside. But it’s different from the history of urbanization in the western countries when this 50% turned around. Even in cities like Beijing, those high income wealthy residents still stay in the city, instead of moving out to surburbs to enjoy more green landscaping, cleaner air…it is not happening here, because the surburbs are not nice and reliable enough.
So urbanization will be the foundation of China’s architecture/development and provide a lot of works for architects/planners/designers, the only problem is that you need to team up with other small firms, and hire a consultant like us to put things together dealing with the less experienced Chinese clients. Or, you will need to learn how to think big, learn how to plan an entire town…which is already happening. Some Californian architects have designed an entire town in China.