Attempts to realise that dream have almost never lived up to expectations. Yan Meng, Xiaodu Liu and Hui Wang, the three partners of the Chinese practice Urbanus, are taking up the challenge in Guangzhou. Vanke-Tulou is an immense housing project with an unusual cylindrical shape that includes 245 apartments distributed over 12,000 square metres along with a hostel, small hotel, shops, gym, library and various communal outdoor spaces. With just a few months left before completion, prototypes and drawings are on show at the Cooper-Hewitt Museum in New York from 3 October to 8 May, 2009. Elena Sommariva