The 8 Bridge ：A Fashion Landmark

The 8 Bridge is located in the center of the Shanghai city- Jianguo Middle Road, No.8 to No.10.

Entrance Door at both sides of the Jianguo Middle Road

This creative campus was rebuilt from Shanghai Automotive Brake Factory.

The 8 Bridge has its own unique style. At its first floor, designer use the bridge to connect each house and make a convenient communication environment for staff or space.

Inside

One of the Bridge

According to Shanghai Real Estate (one of the famous magazine in Shanghai) point out that the 8 Bridge should be the most successful real estate projects in Shanghai among the old factory buildings transformed into commercial real estate.

Since the end of 2004, The Bridge 8 had attracted more than 50 creative industry companies from home and abroad, including construction firms, costume designing, movie production, art gallery, advertisement and PR Agency. Some of them have become the leader in their professional field. Such as S.O.M, which designed Shanghai Jinmao Building. British designer firm ALSOP and France F-emotion, public relations firm.

Company list

Orientation of The 8 Bridge

PS: Our group also did some interview from this creative zone.We will post this media product later after we tranlate into English. In addition,two more creative park will post soon.

A Creative Industry with Ningbo Characteristics

As the first creative industries garden in Ningbo, Loft 8, to me, its value lies more in the symbolic meaning that Ningbo government are beginning to develop the creative industry in Ningbo rather than what has actually been done there. Zane Zhu, the host of No Space, said that they would not change their art pursuit to cater for the majority. In fact, with a long tradition of doing business, Ningbo should consider a unique way that different from Beijing or Shanghai. Simply copy will not work. Ningbo has its own advantages. Considering Ningbo’s flourishing manufacturing industry and textile industry, I think more emphasis could be put on industrial design and fashion design etc.

The Relationship Between Creative Industries and Real-estate

Creative industries and real-estate are closely linked. There is an interactive relationship between them. Creative enterprises should integrate together to form an industrial chain which includes design, production, manufacture and distribution for further development. However, it depends on the developments of infrastructure. A reasonable cost of real-estate is a necessary foundation. At the beginning, the creative enterprises (especially small and medium-sized enterprises) are spontaneous and gather in some places. These places often have low rents and the relatively convenient transportation. So the real-estate is the foundation for the development of creative industries. The creative industries also contribute to the value of real-estate. The development of creative industries will bring many enterprises and elite together. It will raise the value of the real-estate. How to make creative industries combine with the real-estate effectively should be taken into consideration. I suppose that the governmental policy is significant.

Megacity vs. 2nd-Tier City

According to the three posts, in my opinion, it can be seen that there is distance between big city like Shanghai and Ningbo, in some degree, the gap between them is a bit huge. Shanghai is a megacity that has a mature development in cultural and economic areas. Compared to Shanghai, Ningbo succeed in export economy, however, it has many unnoticed cultural elements, or in other words, there cultural elements have inadequate attention. Our group talked with the host of No Space, he said very few people know about this kind of exhibition even it was free. With little publicity, the lack of attention on creative events and the discrete distribution of the population who are interested in this area may be some reasons of making distance. Government in some part plays an important role in establishing urban creative industries. Ningbo maybe cannot copy the model of Shanghai but it has its own advantages, such as geographical position and economic success.

Some Thoughts on Loft 8

Does creative industry of Ningbo succeed in gaining profit? If it does, how? If not, how can creative clusters do to achieve? We need to think about these questions. When talked with the host of No Space, Zane Zhu, he said they have not had plan of profit yet. Maybe it would be in the next stage. Whether creative groups should have a suitable position at first or not? How to gain benefits with commercial operation? Should they need some professional aids from marketing consultants? Does the commercial operation change the principles and essence of creativity or not? Or will the creative events lose its cultural significance?

Some pictures from Loft 8 Ningbo China

Loft 8 is the first creative industries precinct in Ningbo. The house used to be Ningbo Fangxiang depot built in 1950s. At present, many studios had moved into this precinct already, such as Panda box, No space, Energy black stone design, Ningbo baitian design and ZhengGang studio etc.

According to Yaopu, assistant of the No Space gallery, he pointed out that at this very beginning time, in other words, this is the first step for this young company. They use the money from some foundation to make both ends meet. On the other hand, they put up a perfect bridge between artist and art collector even investors with their professional knowledge which help them to prove their real worth both provider and customer.

No Space blog

Loft 8 logo (By Fu Hanqing)One post with the Chinese character (By Fu Hanqing)

Design company Panda box logo (By Fu Hanqing)

Another design company No space (By Fu Hanqing)

Bathroom(By Fu Hanqing)