A Guide to the Peoples-Ambitious Happy Land

ND A L PY

THE US HAP O T IDE TIO RATORY I U B G M A S-ARBAN LABO E L P PEO UI RIVER U TONG

H

ANNE MA & JOHN WAN

STUDENTS

ANNE MA anne.ma@yale.edu CRITICS ALAN J. PLATTUS alan.plattus@yale.edu

JOHN WAN chengqijohn.wan@yale.edu

ANDREI HARWELL andrei.harwell@yale.edu

SPECIAL THANKS TO THE 2015 CHINA ADVANCED DESIGN STUDIO: HUGO FENEAUX CYNTHIA HSU SHUANGJING HU APOORVA KHANOLKAR RICHARD MANDIMIKA ABDULGADER NASEER ISAAC SOUTHARD WINNY TAN

AND OUR FRIENDS FROM TSINGHUA UNIVERSITY: RANDY ZHANG & GEORGE GE

© 2015 Yale University School of Architecture

TS N E T ON

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OVERVIEW

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PROGRAM ASSET MATRIX

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SITE 1: FOOD EMPORIUM

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SITE 2: CIRCLE CAMPUS & EGG PLAZA

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SITE 3: KEEPER OF THE RING

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CONTEXT MAP

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Early conceptual sketch for Circle Campus & Egg Plaza

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EW

VI R E V O

GROUND-UP URBANISM What if urban design straddles both local and regional ambitions, yet remains meaningful and relevant to the communities it serves?

We approach the question of city-making not through a singular top-down strategy, but instead through the analysis of site-specific, unique situations. This produces urban experiments which address both the problems and opportunities of found urban sites.

We propose a continuous urban laboratory in which we engage both public and private in the process of urban development, represented through narratives that capture the intricacies of human inhabitation.

We are excited by the contributions of the community.

We are interested in the in-between.

We are intrigued by insurgent spaces.

This is the kind of city we would like to realize.

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“...insurgent public spaces challenge the conventional, codified notion of public and the making of space.” 1 Forgotten spaces are forgotten only because their potential has not been realized. These spaces can be the foundations for insurgent public spaces, self-made urban spaces that range from reclaimed and reappropriated sites, temporary events, and informal gathering places.

Our strategy stems from identifying and appropriating such spaces as starting points for a larger system of urban growth. This begins with an analysis of top-down planning, via the question of how today’s urban planners approach the redevelopment of the site. We propose a parallel set of strategies that work in conjunction; a participatory tactical urbanism that would enable us to approach insurgent spaces effectively.

The ingredients to a ground-up urbanism is broken into two streams: Criticism and Context. Criticism comes into contact with the local and more intimate site conditions, while Context is rooted in cultural norms and historical foundations.

1 p2, Hou, Jeffrey. Insurgent Public Space: Guerrilla Urbanism and the Remaking of Contemporary Cities. “Chapter 1, (Not) your everyday public space”. Routledge, 2010

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The result of this parallel process is something we imagine will result in a ‘new urbanscape’. This in turn segues into two distinct streams. In one stream, the development stabilizes, potentially becoming institutionalized and naturalized by the government; something ‘official’. In the other stream, the project becomes abandoned, forgotten and obsolete; something ‘unofficial’.

Together they create a balanced urbanism, both existing within the city as counterpoints to each other. As the ‘unofficial’ site approaches obsolescence, it gets re-identified as insurgent territory, which is then fed back into our parallel urban strategy.

The following series of narratives explore the architectural implications and consequent narratives arising from our sites of experimentation.

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BALANCED URBANISM 9

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We see programme not as a singular, unyielding thing, but as a limitless list of possibilities. The program assets are distilled into a set of four overarching hierarchies: Infrastructural, Developer Ambitions, Cultural Hotspots and Community Initiatives.

Infrastructural This is the level of large city-scale moves primarily executed by the government, and includes road infrastructre, waterfront development and traffic improvement.

Developer Ambitions This is the scale of architectural space that is ripe for development.

These range from small stores to large planned residential communities.

Cultural Hotspots These programmatic elements are at the scale of the district as well as greater Beijing culture. These are concentrations of communal activity, culturally distinguished and unique to time and place.

Community Initiatives This is at the scale of the locals, a crowd-sourced feeding of ideas, information, suggestions and issues that feed into each of the above categories as drivers for urban growth and change.

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Asset Asset

Code

Name Name

Chinese Pavilion Chinese Pavilion

Code Infrastructural Developer Ambitions Infrastructural Cultural Hotspots Developer Ambitions Community Initiatives Cultural Hotspots Community Initiatives

Trees Trees

Trees Trees

PROGRAMME INSURGENCY

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In this insurgent district, the focus is on the “pinch” point in the existing rail tracks running through a majority of the extended Tonghui River site. The tracks are a major barrier between north and south, and even amongst extant building “islands” within the railyards.

We imagine communities on both sides of the railway tracks coming together to improve north-south connectivity from the southern Shuanghuayuan residential community and the northern Chaoyang district, spurring the city planners and railway company to invest in the re-purposing and linkage of existing railyard buildings.

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PLAN 1:2000

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1a

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2a DAYLIGHTING

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DEVELOPMENT

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THE UNDERPASS

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EDUCATION CENTER

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PROPAGANDA POSTER

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5a

EMPLOYEE RESIDENCES

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BACK IN THE DAY...

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WATERFRONT

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1b

FOOD VENDING

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With the goal of revitalizing an under-utilized plot of land, “Egg Plaza� and its neighboring circular railway test track was imagined as a vibrant mixed-use campus intimately tied to its railyard heritage, which includes a collaboration between the extant Beijing Railway Museum and Urban Planning Museum.

In this narrative, a temporary festival on an empty lot owned by the national railway company evolves into a formal amusement park over the span of a decade, its content and nomenclature assisted by crowd-sourced community initiatives. An industrial landscape, vacant and under-utilized, is transformed into a cultural destination.

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PUS M A LE C

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CIRC : O TW E T I S AZA L P EGG

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PLAN 1:2500

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1a FIRST STEPS

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1b

DEVELOPMENT PLAN

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2a

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FAIRGROUND OPENING

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FAIRGROUND SIGNAGE

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COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

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4b

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COMMUNITY INITIATIVES

FESTIVAL MARKET

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A FAMILY OUTING

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6a OFFICE REPURPOSING

6b FAIRGROUND EXPANSION

6c ATTRACTING VENDORS

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THE MILLENIAL BEAST

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1 FAMILY OUTING

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PEDESTRIAN OVERPASS

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RAILWAY RESIDENCES

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3a

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ART PARK

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RAILWAY MUSEUM

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DUCK POND

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THE TONGHUI RAIL EXPRESS

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CAPSULE HOTEL

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EGG PLAZA REVITALIZED

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EGG PLAZA

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WATERFRONT TRANSPORTATION

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In the largest urban experiment, we looked at the space underneath and surrounding the 4th Ring Road’s intersection with the Tonghui riverfront. The intersection’s most pressing problem was traffic congestion, and this served as the starting point for revitalizing the site.

From there, the river is expanded into a bay with a “community island” for nearby residents. The island and its roadway, beginning as acts of intervention by the authorities, then act as a node and central hub for activity that spills over beyond the site’s extents, attracting new private development along the Ring Road, furniture market and open lots.

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PASSING THE GATE

KEEPER GATE

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TRAFFIC CONTROL

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WALK IN THE PARK

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ISLAND LIFE

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6 5 EXPANSION

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RESETTLEMENT

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FURNITURE MARKET BARTER CRESCENT

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RAIL EXPRESS STATION

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