MCM Group International, Cangma Mountain Landscape, 2015. Installation view at Palazzo Mora, 2016.

Table to Farm
Architects and planners focus our theories and talents on cities. The very aesthetic of architecture is informed by the art of living in cities, yet half of humanity is non-urban. Humanity’s very existence is tied to the life of the soil. Harvest serves as the backbone of our civilizations.
Table to Farm is a metaphor for China’s approach to addressing one of the most vexing problems of our age. Every society wants to improve the living standards of their people, however moving the remaining half of the world’s agrarian peoples to an urban lifestyle will be an environmental disaster, becoming an uncontrollable force in driving global warming. China has put out the call to planners and architects to search for ways to improve the lives of their 700 million non-urban residents without having to uproot their lives and traditions through a compelling urbanization.
The Qingdao Cangma Mountain project is an experimental template to create an economically and environmentally sustainable non-urban environment. MCM Group won an international competition to address these critical issues. What is uncommon about the Cangma Mountain project is that agriculture forms the base of both the visitor and residential experience. The Jiaonan County leadership was particularly concerned that the project be a model of economic revitalization for the area’s villagers. Because the project’s entire 35 square kilometers is zoned as agriculture land, with an agrarian workforce, the planning program and site layout needed to arise from and integrate into agricultural production. Moreover, it needed to rely upon traditional building techniques where appropriate to reflect indigenous skills as well as indicate a deep grounding in the local culture.
Cangma Mountain, located in Jiaonan county, is one of the seven regional districts of Qingdao, a seaport city on China’s east coast. The county is home to leading blueberry, herbal, and vegetable farms that market their prized produce throughout China.
Our principal innovation was in creating a comprehensive planning and design methodology to integrate productive agricultural lands to sustainably support 100,000 eventual residents and a vibrant tourism district. Now considered one of the largest blueberry and herbal farms in the world, Cangma Mountain supports a leading tourism destination and residential community.
Under the guidance of Jian Xiang Wang, Party Secretary of the Huangdao District and Deputy Mayor of Qingdao and Qun Li, Party Secretary of Qingdao and Hai Yan Tong, Vice Secretary of the District, the Cangma Mountain project was developed by the Qingdao Long Hui Group.
Although the Farm to Table movement’s intent is to remind us city dwellers of the origins of our food and to reinforce a genteel environmental consciousness, its symbolism is urban. As planners and architects, we need to retrain ourselves to think beyond the city and help create viable non-urban lifestyles. Our work on Cangma Mountain is one small step in that direction.
MCM Group is a leading international planning and design firm headquartered in Los Angeles. Founded in 1984 by Michael C. Mitchell after the close of the Los Angeles Olympic Games, where he served as the head of planning and operations, the firm has sought to expand those planning techniques as a model to address prominent social problems.