Urbanus, an architecture and design firm with offices in Shenzhen and Beijing, first made a name for itself designing public open spaces; some of its earliest commissions in the late 1990s were for squares, plazas and parks, mostly in Shenzhen.

With thousands of artists in the area busily forging famous (and obscure) paintings, Dafen is an intriguing place for an art museum. A “village” within the city of Shenzhen, it features streets and alleys packed with studios producing counterfeit paintings, many of which are bought to decorate hotel rooms in the United States and elsewhere.