The Cosmopolis #1.5: Enlarged Intelligence in Chengdu features Filipino artist couple Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan's installation, Here, There, Everywhere, a miniature community made of recycled cupboards. [Photo provided to China Daily]

An international exhibition in Chengdu examines issues surrounding urbanization, Lin Qi reports.

Nigerian Kunle Adeyemi says he doesn't aspire to create beautiful buildings but instead focuses on "tackling problems, providing solutions and harnessing opportunities". This ethos is manifested in the Makoko Floating School, a wooden, floating school and community center he built on a lagoon in Lagos in 2012. Adeyemi designed the structure to provide a prototype for waterfront communities worldwide that face rapid urbanization, rising sea levels and floods caused by climate change.

He sourced local materials and used endemic techniques in his project to provide sustainable, affordable housing.

An updated version of the school, called MFS II, was displayed and won silver at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2016.

A third iteration, MFS IIIx3, has been assembled on a lake in a suburban wetland park in Sichuan province's capital, Chengdu.

It includes three pyramid pavilions linked by a plaza. The structures combine Nigeria's historical experiences of building floating dwellings with local bamboo-weaving.

Adeyemi calls the MFS series "an innovative project about innovation".

"Even if it is a minimally viable product, we take it to the next step," he says.