China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanism

THE CHINA LAB GUIDE TO

MEGABLOCK URBANISMS

The China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanisms Published by Actar Publishers, New York, Barcelona www.actar.com Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation, New York arch.columbia.edu/books Authors Jeffrey Johnson Cressica Brazier Tat Lam Book Design Michael Rock / 2x4 Design and Graphics Stephen Chou Jiteng Yang Book Coordinator Jiteng Yang Key Contributors for the GSAPP China Lab Li Yang, Illijana Soldan, Bohan Liu, Sai Ma, Fu Ma, Zhuang Yong Wen, Ringo Tse Copy Editing and Proofreading Stephanie Salomon All rights reserved Edition Š 2020 Actar Publishers and the Trustees of Columbia University in the City of New York Texts, design, and drawings Š the authors This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved, on all or part of the material, specifically translation rights, reprinting, re-use of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilm or other media, and storage in databases. For use of any kind, permission of the copyright owner must be obtained.

Distribution Actar D, Inc. New York, Barcelona.

New York 440 Park Avenue South, 17th Floor New York, NY 10016, USA T +1 2129662207 salesnewyork@actar-d.com Barcelona Roca i Batlle 2-4 08023 Barcelona, Spain T +34 933 282 183 eurosales@actar-d.com Indexing ISBN: 978-1-940291-16-1 Library of Congress Control Number: 2019955208 This book has been produced through the Office of the Dean, Amale Andraos, and the Office of Publications at Columbia University GSAPP. Director of Publications: James Graham Assistant Director: Isabelle Kirkham-Lewitt Managing Editor: Jesse Connuck Associate Editor: Joanna Kloppenburg

CONTENTS 09

Foreword

Amale Andraos

10

Introduction/Redefinition

Jeffrey Johnson

Catalog 28

Mapping the Superblock

46

100 Superblocks

151

Superblock Data Comparison

161

1.0 History Timeline Research Residential Planning in Contemporary China: A Genealogy

Duanfang Lu

Block, Superblock, and Megablock: A Short Morphological History History Lessons in Shanghai

207

David Grahame Shane Edward Denison

2.0 Urbanism Timeline Research Who’s Afraid of the Superblock?

3D City: Utopian or Ideal?

Jun Jiang

Floating Islands and the Loss of Urbanity

Jian Shi

Living Inside and Outside the Superblock

Yung Ho Chang Interview with Jeffrey Johnson

Superblock Photo Essay

271

Eric Chang

3.0 Policy Timeline Research

John Fitzgerald and Matthew Niederhauser

David Bray From Danwei to Xiaoqu : The Genealogy of a Peculiar Urban Form

293

4.0 Economy Timeline Research Jiaming Ju Dangdong: Instant City Real Estate

327

5.0 Society Timeline Research AndrĂŠ Schmidt and Joris Fach Superblock Security

349

6.0 Ecology Timeline Research Zhongjie Lin Residential Development in China’s Eco-city Movement Eco-Cities within Cities

379

Steven Holl Interview with Tat Lam

7.0 Export Timeline Research Michiel Hulshof and Daan Roggeveen These Gates Provide Freedom Megablock Dialogues

404

Acknowledgments

405

Image Credits

Jeffrey Johnson, Renee Y. Chow, Jianfei Zhu, Clover Lee, Jun Jiang, Xuefei Ren

Foreword There is such optimism carried by the word urbanism: at once operating at the scale of the city and that of architecture, urbanism at its best is sited at the intersection of both scales and all that is in between to holistically shape the built environment. As a discipline, urbanism promises to stitch back together the long-estranged and often opposed disciplines of planning and architecture, drawing on their various tools and methodologies as well as their discourses and sets of values. As a practice, urbanism often expands its ingredients to include everything from programming to form making, from the design of systems and infrastructures to the staging of participatory engagement processes.

Despite such promise, or maybe because of it, the practice of urbanism is today hard to come by. Caught between the overwhelming forces of real estate development on the one hand and the erosion of public processes in shaping cities on the other, much of the world’s contemporary urbanization has left the idea of urbanism behind. Indeed, taking stock of the last Western “urban utopia” that succeeded in producing significant transformations across design, planning, policy, and development at a continental scale, only New Urbanism comes to mind, today already thirty years old—and with many attempts since failing to capture the power of such an idea and its practice.

Where some might see in these failed attempts the death of urbanism’s potency, this study of the “megablock” reframes the search for urbanism by finding traces of hope, not in the stagnation of Western models but in the messy and mind-boggling dynamism of China’s urban awakening. Born out of the Columbia GSAPP China Lab, this research was launched at a remarkable historical moment, as an attempt to capture in real time the unprecedented building (and demolishing) boom that China witnessed starting at the turn of the century. Just as the China Lab’s research posited itself as a new form of academic inquiry—immediate, engaged, and on the ground—the resulting book is an invitation to take a more distanced view of its object of study, and also of a specific mode of architectural inquiry.

With the distance afforded today, the book that resulted from this research stands the test of time as both content and form were thick enough to move beyond the reductive and polarized reactions of observers to China’s development in earlier years. Neither “wow!” nor “gasp!,” the book instead steadily and systematically complicates any easy or singular reading of this model of large-scale development, keeping its contradictions in play as both critique and advocacy. The megablock can be an instrument of economic and social exclusivity, or it can uniquely address the needs of mass housing. It can be a site of architectural and environmental invention, or it can consolidate the default assumptions of development. It can exacerbate the increasing fragmentation of the planet into strictly bounded enclaves, or it can invite a renewed sense of community and the services that sustain them.

It is here that The China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanisms finds its greatest potency— as an invitation to constantly recast the shock of global urbanization not in contrast but in dialogue with urbanism’s most noble aspirations, and as an outline of possible threads for imagining and constructing alternate models for a more integrated, creative, and sustainable built environment for the future.

Amale Andraos Dean, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation (GSAPP)

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Introduction/Redefinition: Superblock to Megablock Jeffrey Johnson China has experienced a historically unprecedented rate of urbanization since Deng Xiaoping’s Reform and Opening policies in 1978. China’s urban population ballooned from roughly 150 million in 1978 to more than 800 million in 2018—the equivalent of building a new Chicago every two months. Deng’s policies prioritized economic development in urban areas, starting with the Special Economic Zones1 in cities along the eastern coastline. As subsequent policies expanded the economic opportunities across China, foreign investment poured in to take advantage of the country’s seemingly unlimited labor force and low wages. Millions of migrant workers left the countryside, where incomes were low and economic opportunities almost nonexistent, for more gainful employment in cities and industrial regions. To put this in historical perspective, and to better understand its scale and magnitude, China’s recent urban growth took only a single generation to achieve as compared to a century in America.

Even more striking is that this trend is expected to continue. The Chinese central government’s modernization plan is to fully integrate 70 percent of the country’s population, or roughly 900 million people, into cities by 2025. This translates into moving 200 to 250 million rural residents into newly constructed towns and cities over the next dozen years.2 The strategy is in part an effort to strengthen the national economy by generating more domestic consumption, which occurs most efficiently by urban populations. According to the McKinsey Global Institute, this would create more than 220 cities with 1 million or more inhabitants (the United States currently has only nine cities with a population of 1 million or more and Europe has only thirty-five such cities). One hundred seventy new mass-transit systems would need to be built to support 40 billion square meters of new floor space.3

Superblock Urbanisms The default solution for accommodating urban growth in China is large-scale superblock development. With site areas that can exceed 40 hectares, and populations reaching over 100,000, these autonomous blocks, often surrounded by walls, have been radically transforming cities in China. Operating between the scales of architecture and the city, they act as spatial instruments with social, cultural, environmental, and economic implications.

The large-scale blocks dominate the ever-expanding periphery of existing urban areas and at the center of newly planned cities. They can also be found intruding on the historical cores of cities, forever altering their physical makeup. These large-scale residential enclaves are taking over the fabric of Chinese cities.

Despite recent efforts by the central government at deterrence,4 current land development practices in China continue to promote the development of large and isolated residentialcommercial districts and compounds, mainly through its methods of parceling large tracts of land into a collection of immense blocks. Since all land is officially government-owned, local governments establish and enforce procedures for control of the land, and for its acquisition and redevelopment. Local governments will acquire, often controversially, vast urban areas, frequently displacing thousands of existing residences. What was once a diverse and vibrant urban neighborhood can be transformed seemingly overnight into a single largescale development site with clearly defined boundaries. These newly formed superblocks, cleared and prepared for redevelopment, are then auctioned off to a single private developer who has been selected from a preapproved group. The developer does not own the land, but has rights to it through a forty- or fifty-year lease. This method places many of the burdens

and responsibilities of urban development in private hands and at the whim of the real estate market. The larger the development and its tract of land, the more the developer is responsible to build and to maintain, relieving the municipality of this obligation.

In addition to constructing large portions of the contemporary city, private development is also responsible for filling the municipal government’s coffers. As part of the decentralization of government, China’s central government has pushed the majority of the responsibilities for revenue earning onto the local municipalities. Because (as of 2019) there is no annual property tax, municipal governments levy a one-time land-sale tax on developers when they purchase the rights to land to develop. This tax might amount to as much as 50 to 75 percent of the municipality’s annual revenue, in turn necessitating a climate of pro-development.

Cities continually need to make new land available for development to assist them in raising funds to pay for much-needed infrastructure, schools, security and safety, hospitals, and cultural facilities.

Despite its negative impacts, China’s dominant model for new housing developments—selfcontained gated superblock communities—offers a starting point for the reconsideration of mass urban housing and possible hybrid forms. The superblock is both architecture and urbanism, and it provides the basic DNA for large-scale urban development in China. When it is at its best, it can provide the framework and infrastructure to enable and encourage a more sustainable urban model at the scale of a neighborhood. At its worst, its isolation and monotonous repetition can create dehumanizing conditions, cutting off residents from the city’s flows and experiences.

The Megablock Research Project was initiated in 2008 by China Lab, a research unit at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation that focused on the radical transformations of cities in China as a result of rapid urbanization.

The project supplied us with a critical point of engagement with the Chinese city. We aimed to discover through this research unique and emerging urbanisms operating at a large scale that could be adapted, reinterpreted, and deployed in other rapidly urbanizing contexts. Our objective was to redefine the “superblock”—the typical urban unit in China that we felt had run its course—into the “megablock”—an urban prototype that holds the promise of fulfilling the social, economic, spatial, and ecological challenges facing the city in the future. The China Lab Guide to Megablock Urbanisms is intended as a handbook to this urban phenomenon.

It does not offer any solutions, nor does it propose alternatives. Its purpose is to illuminate an urban condition that may provide lessons on how we plan for an increasingly urbanized planet.

The book is organized into two parts. The first part documents one hundred superblock projects, including nine international projects. The selection is not meant to be exhaustive, but seeks to demonstrate the variety of projects we researched and analyzed. We envision it functioning like a tool for comparing and contrasting the various superblocks.5 The superblocks are presented alphabetically (in English) and by city. The second part of the book is composed of essays from leading scholars, academics, and practitioners, and organized into eight sections: Redefinition, History, Urbanism, Policy, Economy, Society, Ecology, and Export.

Superblock Antecedents The formation of cities can be traced back over 5,000 years, with the grid as the organizing system and the block as its basic urban unit for nearly as long. In China, the history of the

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city dates back to around 2600 BC. As early as the Zhou dynasty (1028–771 BC), principles of urban design were established by the state and applied throughout the country as an official design system. Long before the architects and planners of international modernism devised their utopian urban visions, China had developed an ideal city plan based on a grid of largescale blocks enclosed by a wall. Considered the most influential document on cities and urban planning in ancient China, Zhou Li—Kaogongji described a comprehensive urban planning system that included basic principles of city planning and building systems. This work not only laid out morphological principles but also explained how the city functioned. Origins of early forms of walled neighborhoods defined by gridded streets can be traced to this era— arguably early antecedents of superblock planning.

For millennia, and through the multitude of shifts in power, the basic principles of urban planning and city design in China persisted with only minor variations. Following the fall of the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), greater influence from international discourses infiltrated city planning in China, most notably Ebenezer Howard’s garden city movement and Clarence Perry’s neighborhood unit. While both approaches were developed as an effort to humanize and improve life in the late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century industrial city, the latter proved more adaptable and practical for planning in China during and after the Republican era (1911–49). The basic design features of the neighborhood unit consisted of distinct boundaries defined by major streets, retail and commercial functions at the periphery, a primary school within walking distance, and ample parks and playgrounds for recreation.6 Because the developments were conceived as self-contained neighborhoods with limited interior vehicular access, they provided safe and socially focused environments for their inhabitants.

Following the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, correspondence with the West decreased and the influence of the Soviet Union increased. The role of the neighborhood unit as the predominant planning strategy gave way to the Soviet-style “superblock,” a collection of four- to six-story residential buildings organized around a quadrangle.7 After the superblock was met with criticism that noted a disregard for siting and orientation and a lack of cross ventilation, it was replaced with the Soviet “microdistrict,” a self-contained residential district designed to house between 5,000 and 15,000 residents.8 The microdistrict model proved to offer better alignment with socialist principles, and it reinforced the urban administrative structure that was put into place by the PRC.9 It was also applied in the spatial planning of the work unit, or danwei, which was the basic unit of the production system under Mao Zedong. Borrowing much from the experimental factory towns in the Soviet Union, the spatialization of the danwei integrated workplace, residences, and social facilities within a walled compound. Its interior organization, which corresponded to the specific production functions of the unit, was completely disconnected from the city outside.

The microdistrict remained the dominant residential planning paradigm into the 1960s.

Because planners were unable to realize many of the proposed projects as result of shortages of resources and limited political power, however, cities became a mixture of spatially segregated microdistricts and work units scattered throughout the city—a far cry from the ideal socialist city envisioned by Mao and his planners. With Deng Xiaoping’s economic reforms in 1978, the role of the work unit as the fundamental sociospatial unit of the Chinese city relinquished its influence to the forces of a more capitalist, real estate-oriented type of planning. The microdistrict, as it turned out, would be the precursor to the contemporary superblock development model that would soon dominate urban expansion in China and the transformation of the urban landscape.

As noted earlier, the history of urban settlements and their design and planning extends back millennia. In his essay for this book, “Block, Superblock, and Megablock” (pp. 188–195), Grahame Shane takes us through a selective history of urban form in which the block was the predominant planning unit, illustrating the differences in block patterns and sizes. He describes how the changes over time have radically reshaped the urban landscape, concluding with the megablock and its hybrid forms. Duanfang Lu provides in her essay, “Residential Planning in Contemporary China” (pp. 171–184), an in-depth history of cities in China, focusing attention on how residential planning responded to modernization and the various influences that helped shape it. David Bray’s essay, “From Danwei to Xiaoqu” (pp. 285–291), examines the ways in which the danwei work unit, influenced by the utopian factory towns in the Soviet Union, provided an ideal archetype for collective living and the formation of a new proletarian society.

Superblock Urbanism Following the economic reforms in 1978, planning policies encouraged, if not outright mandated, large-scale superblock development to accommodate the increasingly rapid rate of urban growth. After years of stagnation, cities were burdened with demands of expansion at a pace and magnitude that was historically unprecedented. Seemingly overnight, sizable parcels of land within cities were now required to house the large-scale projects. Municipalities extended their urban boundaries further and further into agricultural zones, and large swaths of inner-city areas were cleared.

Superblock development continues to radically transform cities in China, dominating the urban fabric and life within it. The evolution and transformation of cities are controlled by the municipal governments and their planning agencies through a top-down planning process.

While there are vibrant unplanned and spontaneous transformations occurring at smaller scales within the cities, the urban planning agenda is set by the municipal governments with minimal or no public input, and carried out through mandatory five-year master plans. With the superblock as their basic planning unit, large chunks of urban and rural land are cleared and transformed into autonomous enclaves, often displacing residents and taxing existing city infrastructures—forever altering lives and the physical history of the city.

The design and planning of each superblock is done confidentially, usually by a single design office or a Local Designer (LDI)10 working with a private developer. This results in the blocks being neither connected nor influenced by their context. In addition, because the developments are largely influenced by the real estate market, they are often repetitive and formulaic. Existence in the city turns itself inward with a focus on life within the superblock.

While the public spaces inside the block can offer residents a variety of amenities and areas for social engagement, and, arguably, comparisons can be drawn with the inward-focused nested spaces in China’s urban history, the walled-in blocks are autonomous enclaves that take no part in an overall spatial urban narrative. Without a serious critique and willingness to consider alternative strategies for urban development, the future cities in China run the risk of becoming constellations of disparate and disconnected large-scale fragments floating in a homogenous landscape of infrastructures and leftover urban spaces. The once dynamic life of the city found in the streets and narrow alleys could become a distant memory.

Yung Ho Chang, in his interview for this volume (pp. 243–249), describes his childhood growing up in the Beijing hutong and discusses how the superblock is a radical departure from the urbanism of the traditional city. He also cites examples from his own architectural

15

practice in which he has challenged the superblock model by designing smaller-scaled and pedestrian-oriented blocks. Jian Shi, in “Floating Islands and the Loss of Urbanity” (pp.

237–241), considers the recent disruptive transformations to Beijing and argues that the social and physical structure of a traditional neighborhood is an appropriate counterpoint to the superblock. In his essay “History Lessons in Shanghai,” Edward Denison (pp. 197–205) explores the ways in which the destruction of Shanghai’s urban heritage to make way for new construction, including contemporary superblocks, have radically transformed the historical structure of the city. He also brings into focus the differences in historical outlooks regarding “change” between Western and non-Western societies, which provides a cultural context for the cycles of destruction and reconstruction of cities in China. Eric Chang illuminates, in his essay “Who’s Afraid of the Superblock?” (pp. 221–229), the numerous forces and mechanisms that define the contemporary superblock project in China. Both Chang and David Bray contend that the superblock, in its current state, is predictable and formulaic. Here, Chang offers ideas on how to alter the formula to provide for more humanistic solutions. At the same time, Jun Jiang, in his essay, “3D City: Utopian or Ideal?” (pp. 231–234), argues for a denser, more diverse city that extends transportation networks and programs vertically, which will protect precious agricultural land from being swallowed up by unchecked urban expansion.

Superblock Economy When, in 1997, the Chinese government relinquished its responsibility for providing housing for its population and relieved employers of having to offer housing to their workers, a new commodity-based real estate market began to form. Private developers, first from Hong Kong and Singapore, then from mainland China, quickly stepped in to meet the market demands.

The superblock was a perfect model to adapt. For the first time in more than a half-century, socially focused priorities gave way to economic ones for new urban development.

Over the past few decades, China has experienced a massive real estate boom. With the continuous influx of new urban inhabitants and the increased prosperity of Chinese citizens, the demand for new development has generated an enormous market. It has perpetuated a cycle of destruction, construction, and reconstruction that has radically reshaped the urban environment. Like many cities where transformation is being guided by real estate, the process of gentrification can lead to increased socioeconomic stratification and the segregation of the urban population.

While the commoditization of housing plays a significant role in perpetuating the construction of superblocks, the demand, however, is not motivated solely by actual housing needs. Like any market, it is also driven by speculation, which frequently leads to increased prices and greater socioeconomic disparity. As a result of limited opportunities for investment in China, real estate has become a lucrative venture for those with disposable income. And because real estate has proved to be much more reliable than the volatile stock market, it has spurred an investment craze fueling the construction of thousands of developments, which then sit dormant and unoccupied like ghost towns. This not only runs the risk of a real estate “bubble” that could burst at any time but also escalates property prices, where in many cities doubledigit increases occur annually. These price increases create challenges for a large number of China’s urban inhabitants who cannot afford them, further increasing the gap between the wealthy and the poor.

Jiaming Ju, in her essay, “Dandong: Instant City Real Estate” (pp. 317–324), examines the economic motivations behind the development of a new urban district in the city of Dandong, which sits strategically across the Yalu River from North Korea. She analyzes the design and

planning of two superblock developments: one paid for by the municipal government and built to provide reasonably priced mortgages for civil servants, and one completely funded by investors from Singapore and marketed to second-home and vacation-home buyers from outside the region and abroad.

Sociospatial Consequences The ubiquity of the superblock has led to a series of sociospatial consequences that have a significant impact on the city and its future evolution. If the typical superblock is to be redefined as a positive and sustainable urban prototype—the megablock—these primary concerns need to be considered and addressed. Millions of urban inhabitants have had their lives radically altered as a result of this form of urban development. Improving the living conditions of both existing urban dwellers and new inhabitants migrating from the countryside is paramount.

Urban Islands Large chunks of urban land are continuously being converted into superblock developments to accommodate the demands of the growing contemporary city in China. Each superblock is designed in isolation as an autonomous enclave enclosed by a wall and consisting of a collection of repetitive structures that accommodate an inward-focused lifestyle. Access is controlled, with minimal connectivity to adjacent sites and the general urban context. Public accessibility is either discouraged or outright prohibited. The superblock is essentially a city within a city, with its own internal organization and infrastructure. Each superblock is an urban island that takes no part in an overall social or spatial narrative. As a result, the city has been transformed into a field of disconnected urban fragments.

Walled Enclaves 17

Walls built around dwellings and complexes have existed in China for millennia. From traditional courtyard structures to the historical palaces to the socialist danwei, walls and enclosures have been used to demarcate, protect, isolate, envelop, and create an inwardfocused spatial environment. This tendency has persisted in the planning of almost all contemporary superblocks. In addition to providing security, distinct boundaries and an interior-focused plan can contribute to the creation of a sense of identity and community.

Negative consequences of this approach are that it projects a form of social exclusivity and it inhibits continuity of public and semipublic spaces between blocks. The result is the creation of long expanses of impenetrable street walls unfriendly to pedestrians and the urban public as a whole. Additionally, in most cases, very little consideration is given to the self-contained semipublic spaces and building functions that form the collective component of the development. These exist merely as a consequence of the planning formula for required open spaces. If they are not appropriated for automobile parking, they are often left as underutilized and dysfunctional spaces.

Monofunctionality The contemporary superblocks are, in general, less focused on constructing a community around collective activities and daily functions than their socialist predecessors. Most superblock developments today are predominantly single-use residential complexes, which include only a minimum of public amenities. In contrast, the socialist danwei planning model, at least in its most ideal form, provided its inhabitants with access to all daily functions and

necessities within its walls, including employment, housing, recreation, education, dining, and health care, and were truly mini cities within cities. The impact that today’s predominantly monofunctional compounds have on the contemporary city is that they function as largescale dormitory blocks, which together result in massively sprawling bedroom communities, often at the urban peripheries. Peri-urban terrains are transformed into automobile-dependent commuter suburbs, which lack urban vitality and character.

Tabula Rasa Perhaps the most destructive consequence of superblock development is the clearing of the site to accommodate the new planning. Almost all new superblock projects begin with a tabula rasa, seldom incorporating or considering existing urban structures and scales, even— tragically—those with historical significance. The superblock is most effective when it is deployed on a flat and cleared site with little or no obstruction. The ideal context for the superblock is no context at all. The contemporary superblock is a consequence of the market economy and its design is a direct result of an optimization formula. This blank slate has obvious social consequences as well. To provide the ideal setting for the new development, not only is it necessary to remove the physical structures but also the people who occupy it.

Whole neighborhoods and communities are uprooted and relocated. Often, those displaced are without means to find suitable housing nearby, requiring relocation to distant locations illserved by transportation and infrastructure and without access to daily necessities.

Exclusivity For members of the burgeoning urban elite, the superblock caters to their new lifestyle demands by providing exclusive, luxurious, and secure housing estates. Learning much from their neighbors in Hong Kong, developers and architects found that the walled and gated superblock could provide their new middle-to-high-income clientele with all the security and luxuries offered to the elite around the globe, including private underground parking spaces for automobiles. Regardless of whether the location is more central or suburban, the walled superblock negatively reinforces the separation of urban classes and groups. Additionally, because many of the luxury developments are located in suburban locations, inhabitants rely on private automobiles for their daily commutes, thus creating more traffic congestion and perpetuating the already dire pollution problem.

Socioeconomic Segregation The superblock has exposed some of the challenges of the social stratification and socioeconomic segregation that have been occurring in China since the economic reforms of 1978. In fact, it has proved to be the perfect instrument to enable and maintain this stratification. This is especially the case for the newly arriving migrants from the countryside who have little money for housing and cannot afford to live in the superblocks. These migrants are limited to living in overpopulated urban villages or at their place of employment in dormitories or temporary on-site facilities, which typically are modified shipping containers or prefabricated trailers. The superblock, once a symbol of communal and socialist values in China, now predominantly caters to the upwardly mobile upper classes.

Urban Peripheries For the many lower-income inner-city dwellers finding themselves in the path of urban renewal and for the large numbers of upwardly mobile citizens moving to the city, superblock

developments located at the urban periphery have provided more affordable accommodations than those located more centrally. For many, these peri-urban superblocks offer a more livable and hygienic living environment than they had previously. Nevertheless, the location at the outer edges of the city can be very isolating and disconnected from the city center, which for a great number of residents has been their home and place of employment for their entire life. Families and communities have been separated and broken apart, and the massive scale of the new developments makes it very difficult for many to form new communities and support networks. The scale, quantity, and pace of development at the urban periphery has also strained existing urban infrastructures, creating massive challenges for the municipality.

André Schmidt and Joris Fach describe in their essay “Superblock Security” (pp. 341– 346) how urban space in China was historically—and arguably is today—a controlled environment. They go on to discuss the ways in which the notion of security influences both the design and everyday functions of the superblock. Steven Holl, in his interview for this book (pp. 369–376), recounts how he designed and realized alternative proposals to the closed block and gated enclave and included public programs within the interior of the block to reinforce his concept of an open and publicly accessible ground floor.

Mega Opportunities Despite the many negative consequences outlined earlier, China’s dominant model for residential development—the self-contained, gated superblock—does offer a starting point for the reconsideration of large-scale urban housing. There are a number of positive attributes that can provide a foundation for the development of alternative prototypes, including integrating commerce and services, maintaining and/or increasing density, and localizing infrastructure and governance. By providing infrastructure, public amenities and facilities, and well-considered landscape and public spaces, communities can thrive, create strong bonds, and form new identities. The megablock can provide a supportive framework for the communities that reside within them and a model for a socially sustainable urban future.

Eco-blocks While China’s urbanization process has served as a key engine of economic growth and created rising living standards, it has resulted in increased pressure on the environment, energy infrastructures, and natural resources. China faces many challenges as it continues to urbanize. Recognizing that it must ease the negative effects of growth and urbanization, with each national five-year plan the central government has increased and expanded its policies on environmentally sustainable development and has promoted increased investment in green technologies. As of 2012, more than 100 Chinese municipal governments had already committed to planning low-carbon cities and districts, which minimize carbon emissions through the construction of energy-saving buildings, the use of renewable energy, water conservation, water recycling, access to public transportation, waste management and reuse, and the expanded use of vegetation to sequester atmospheric carbon. Because so much of urban development is designed from scratch and at large scales, there are greater opportunities to plan comprehensive low-carbon districts. If designed and planned accordingly, the megablock can provide a self-sufficient, sustainable, and energy-efficient urban model for these low-carbon communities and eco-cities.

In his essay “Residential Development in China’s Eco-city Movement” (pp. 355–367), Zhongjie Lin explores these initiatives and cites four examples of ambitious planning efforts, both realized and proposed, that exemplify best practices in the planning and development

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of low-carbon eco-cities. He also cites an example where an “eco-block” was proposed as the prototypical urban unit in the design of an eco-city. Steven Holl, in his interview, describes how he has incorporated energy-efficient technologies and environmentally sustainable planning strategies in the design of large-scale projects.

Exporting the Megablock The superblock in China today is a truly unique urban phenomenon that has been shaped both by China’s distinctive urban past and the many influences from abroad. When considered across its long history, the persistence of the superblock can be attributed to its adaptability to the changing needs of society and urban inhabitation. One of the initial questions we posed with our research was whether the megablock, in an adapted and reconfigured form, could be exported globally as a prototype for the planning of cities in the future. What was discovered was that the superblock, in its current state, was indeed already happening. The superblock has proved to be the preferred urban unit in the planning of new Chinese-sponsored cities and districts in countries in Africa and South America where the central government is cultivating economic ties and securing much-needed resources. The same superblock urbanism that is radically transforming Chinese cities is now influencing the planning of cities globally.

In “These Gates Provide Freedom” (pp. 391–395), Michiel Hulshof and Daan Roggeveen illuminate through their firsthand account the large-scale Chinese-sponsored construction projects in Africa that are essentially replicas of cities in China. The authors explain that the entire turn-key process, including funding, design, planning, and construction, is carried out

by Chinese companies and workers.

The Future of the Megablock China holds many clues to what might become of architecture and the city in the future. As noted earlier, China’s radically shifting urban landscape over the past few decades has inspired considerable academic attention both through research and forward-looking speculation.

In “Megablock Dialogues” (pp. 397–403), I asked five leading international architecture professors to discuss the ways in which they have looked to China in their teaching to better understand the challenges and opportunities rapid urbanization creates as well as how they have interrogated and reconsidered contemporary planning practices, including the superblock. What is evident in the discussion is that China’s urbanization points out both the challenges that may lie ahead for our cities, and our planet, and the potential that exists for the next generation of architects, planners, urbanists, and designers to take an active part in positively shaping the course of that urbanization.

Looking forward, with China’s ambitious plans to move another 200 to 250 million people into cities from the countryside by 2025, the superblock will undoubtedly play a significant role in accommodating these changes. With the shift toward more sustainable low-carbon planning strategies, a more open and porous perimeter, emphasis on a wider range of affordability, and a turn toward mixed-use programming, the superblock in its variety of hybrid forms holds the promise of an adaptable model for future urbanization. The megablock, a self-contained spatial unit, can become an architectural and urban laboratory for experimenting with the future of the city. And, because the megablock in its ideal form is a microcosm of the city, it can provide a vision for a more sustainable urban future.

Notes 1. Special Economic Zones (SEZ) are cities and zones in China for which the central government has granted special economic privileges and free market policies in order to make them more attractive to foreign and domestic investment.

2. Tom Miller, China’s Urban Billion: The Story behind the Biggest Migration in Human History (London: Zed Books, 2012), 18.

3. McKinsey Global Institute, “Preparing for China’s Urban Billion,” https://www.mckinsey. com/~/media/McKinsey/Featured%20Insights/Urbanization/Preparing%20for%20urban%20 billion%20in%20China/MGI_Preparing_for_Chinas_Urban_Billion_full_report.ashx, March 2009 (accessed January 11, 2012).

4. In February 2016, the Chinese central government released a proposal that would require residential compounds to tear down their existing boundary walls to open up the interiors to the public and also require that all new developments have an open perimeter. While the government assured its citizens that the plan would be implemented slowly and selectively, it was still met with some hostility. Pilot projects were undertaken in Changsha and Chengdu to test the plan.

5. Not all of the data was available for each project, which in some cases made it necessary to extrapolate the information from what data we could find, or to choose not to include it.

6. Duanfang Lu, Remaking Chinese Urban Form: Modernity, Scarcity and Space, 1949–2005 (New York: Routledge, 2006), 22.

7. Ibid., 31.

8. Ibid., 32–35.

9. Ibid., 37.

10. A Local Designer (LDI) is a qualified professional agency certified by the Chinese central government to produce legal construction documents for projects within China. All foreign architects are required to partner with an LDI.

21

What Is a Chinese Superblock?

23

北京 BEIJING Tiantongyuan 3 Huilongguan Shang Po Jiayuan + Long Teng Yuan 6

Houbajia Village Wencheng Jiezuo Lanqiying

Huaqing Jiayuan Xiangheyuan Beili Hao Hong Yuan

Chen Yue Yuan Inside-Out

Liu Fang Nan Li Yong Kang Hutong+ Guan Shu Yuan Baiwanzhuang Zhongli Raffles City Beijing

Nanlang Jianwai SOHO

2,040 SUPE

2

G 16,000 KM

Li Hong Garden Sanyuanli Ecological Neighborhood

Modern MOMA Modern Wanguocheng + POP MOMA

g Jiayuan

Wanda Plaza SOHO New Town

Tongdian Mingju Yijia Jiayuan

Guan Yin Hui Yuan Pingod Apartments Regal Riviera Court

ERBLOCKS

Drawing Legend Road Residential Commercial Green Space Recreation/Sports Farmland Police/Fire Department Station/Hospital Education 50

Other

M

Metro Station Bus Stop

P

Parking

xx km

Distance and Direction to Airport

xx km

Distance and Direction to Railway Station

xx km

Distance and Direction to Downtown

100 m

Scale Bar for 100 m

保定 Baoding

Service Facility

y

ng

Do

n ua

St.

51

街

苑

东

Under Construction

Qiy Service Facility

i Ea

Pharmacy

Farmer’s Market

P

st R

d.

Gas Station

七一

东路

2

Supermarket

1 Hebei Agricultural Engineering School 河北农业工程学校 2 Shuiwujiao Hotpot 税务角火锅城

1

Soccer Field

1.70

07/2008

195,264m

Floor Area Ratio 容积率

2

Date of Occupancy 入住时间

Floor Area

(Unit Count)

5,200m +/-

32%

20,000m

2

Green Ratio 绿化率

(1,445)

建筑面积 (住户数)

6,383RMB/m

Purchase Price 售价 (2014)

N

100 m

8.45ha

Parcel Area 用地面积

4.8 km 3.6 km

Hebei Agricultural Engineering School

2

Commercial Floor Area 商业面积

2

Parking Area

(Unit Count)

(700)

停车面积 (车位数)

New Oriental Phoenix City is a mixed-use project located 3.6 kilometers northeast of Baoding near both Hebei University and Huabei North China Electric Power University.

Because of its proximity to two universities, the project was conceived as a “knowledge community” and “college community” combined with a lifestyle of leisure. The project is situated in a rapidly transforming area of Baoding, which has a diverse mixture of buildings, including new luxury high-rise apartments and older traditional small-scale housing. New Oriental Phoenix City adds a considerable number of commercial uses to the area, which is primarily residential, and includes a supermarket, retail shops, a pharmacy, and opportunities for dining and recreation.

新东方 凤凰城

Developer: Heda Real Estate Development Co., Ltd. 开发商：保定赫达房地产开发有限公司

New Oriental Phoenix City

Block, Superblock, and Megablock: A Short Morphological History David Grahame Shane The terms block, superblock, and megablock indicate an increasing capacity and scale of urban form and organization over time. This ascending sequence marks the block as an element in a clear urban hierarchy associated with ever-larger cities: the historical city, the modern metropolis and megalopolis, and now the emerging megacities of Asia.

The scale of block dimensions has shifted over time as the block’s area has been enlarged from its small-scale, early beginnings to grid formations with 0.6-hectare blocks, 6.5-hectare superblocks, and megablocks of 65 hecatres or more. Blocks can form regular or irregular networks of streets, designed by collective use or by landowners intent on development. In each case, the block design is often devoted to a single use as the scale increases, reducing the mix of uses in the name of efficiency. At the same time, the grid, or network of streets, provides a framework for nesting multiple blocks of single uses within the city. As the scale of the city expands, regular blocks nest inside superblocks, which in turn nest within megablocks.

Historically, the nesting of blocks provided a potent system of urban organization that only changed when the increasing pace, scale, and sequencing of development created new hierarchies, allowing modern cities to expand in superblocks across open territories. Initially this new approach required the segregation and sorting of all functions, but with more advanced communication and information systems, new hybrids and mixtures have become possible in the megablocks of both rapidly expanding and shrinking cities.

Block Michael Weinstock, in his 2010 book The Architecture of Emergence, paints an elegant picture of the evolution of the nested block system that begins with early migratory groups, whose pit houses and long houses were arranged in courtyards to respond to solar conditions.1 When deserts expanded as a result of climate change, mass migrations carried these settlement patterns into the Nile, Tigris-Euphrates, Indus and Ganges River valleys, the Mekong Valley in South Asia, and the Yangtze River and Yellow River valleys in China. Such water-based cities and empires were unstable and vulnerable to collapse. Beijing, for instance, was refounded by several dynasties, each time with increasing levels of organization and control. By 1400, Beijing had developed a nested grid and courtyard system with blocks of houses on 150-meter hutong nested in 1,000-meter superblocks inside megablock districts, including the enormous

1,200 ft

NEW YORK BLOCK

HUTONG LILONG SOY LANES

600 ft

1,200 ft

600 ft 800 ft 600 ft

200 ft 200 ft

BLOCK

Figure 1. Block scale comparison.

SUPERBLOCK

MEGABLOCK

100-hectare Forbidden City.

Beijing remained the largest city in the world until 1800. Compared with Beijing, block sizes in ancient villages, cities, and colonies around the world were generally much smaller. The Greek colony of Miletus, for example, contained 3-square-meter blocks of courtyard houses.

The Spanish Law of the Indies of 1573, which governed colonial settlements in Latin America and the Philippines, also followed classical Renaissance precedents by mandating rectangular blocks of housing surrounding a square. In his Completar Santurce, Léon Krier points out that San Juan, Puerto Rico (1509), nested fifty-nine 200-square-meter blocks to create a town of 36 hectares.2 Krier compares San Juan to medieval Berne, Florence, and Munich within the walls, as well as to London’s Covent Garden beyond the Roman walls.

In Georgian London, John Summerson describes Covent Garden (1632; 7.4 hectares) as the first of the Great Estate enclaves that set the pattern for London’s incremental growth.3 The main square (122 by 91 meters) echoed Italian precedents, with attached blocks of merchant row houses (106 by 60 meters) following the Dutch model. In later Great Estates, these block sizes expanded and nested inside superblock grids, as in the Bloomsbury Estate (67 hectares).

Here, several residential increments around Bedford, Russell, Tavistock, and Gordon Squares (137 by 45 meters) formed a gated megablock within the surrounding commercial streets.

The Grosvenor Estate to the west was larger, with three megablocks in Mayfair, Belgravia, and Pimlico.

4 189

3

1

2

200m

200m 1,000ft

Bloomsbury Estate megablock figure ground 48.7 hectares

200m

200m 1,000ft

Covent Garden figure ground 7.4 hectares Bloomsbury Figure 2. Block

1,000ft

Bloomsbury Estate megablock dimensions 4 superblocks nested in 1 megablock

hectares comparison.

hectares

1,000ft

Covent Garden superblock

Beijing Urban Expansion Reality

Tianzhu Economic Development Zone

Zhongguancun Science Park (Haidian Park) Electronics City

1,300 ppl./sq. km

Central Business District

Zhongguancun Science Park (Fengtai Park)

Yizhuang Economic Development Zone Beijing Daxing Industrial Development Area

1,300 Population Density in Built-up Area, per sq. km.

(China Statistical Yearbook, 2014) Ancient City Wall Location Built-up Area (Based on Satellite Photo) Newly Developed Zones

Beijing Comprehensive Master Plan The Comprehensive Plan of Beijing Central-Region (2004–2020)

215

Commercial

Education

Expressway

Public

Physical Education

Arterial Road

Residential

Industrial

Secondary Road

Infrastructure

Green Space

259

261