TRANSIENT TRANSITION Rethinking Urban Development in Nanjing through Healthcare Industry and Infrastructure
MArch I Thesis Harvard University Graduate School of Design Xuanyi Nie Thesis Advisor: Alex Krieger
Thanks to Ann Forsyth, Carlos Muro, Joan Busquets, Peter Rowe and Robert Silman for offering me suggestions on research and design; and Guojun Cai, Juhua Ye, Ming Tong, Shiqi Zhou and Yusong Deng for providing me with me information and knowledge on the contexts of Nanjing and China. Thanks to my friends Fan Wang, Haibei Peng, Jia Gu, Jinhui Huang, Menchen Xia, Sicong Ma, Tianhong Xu, Xuezhu Tian, Yue Shi, who have helped me for making this project happen. Special thanks to Xiaodi Yan, who has always encouraged and supported me tremendously.
1
I
Infrastructure as an Architectural Work
II
Hospital as an Urban Framework
III
Healthcare: an examination of China
IV
Site Investigation
V
Intervention Strategy
VI
Proposed Urban Environment
Evaluating the paradigmatic relationship between infrastructure and architecture through precedents
Hospital should be recognized for the critical tensions between its emergence as an institution and its role in projecting an alternative organization for the social and material order in an urban territory
China is facing unprecedented challenges brought by rapid urban development, and the healthcare industry has to accommodate both quantitative and qualitative needs
The search begins in the new town of Nanjing River-west area
Taking advantage of the 20-meter interstitial space between the public infrastructure and the private property line to implant the proposed prototypes that incorporates healthcare and functions
Providing the site with an alternative paradigm of urban development - integrating TOD principles and healthcare industry
2
I
Infrastructure as an Architectural Work Evaluating the paradigmatic relationship between infrastructure and architecture through precedents
Architecture as a public work Infrastructures are the manifestation of certain political wills, but we tend to forget the political dimension of them. Infrastructures are expensive and no one builds them without very powerful motivations. The good reasons for the huge investments involved have included the consolidations and restructuring of cities in response to periodic crises of a capitalist economy, even the military wills. Meanwhile, urban boulevards and freeways have been political instruments in the hands of Haussmann and Robert Moses, and metropolitan freeway building today works to reinforce and distribute suburban consumerist lifestyles and their economic. But when politics enter infrastructure, there is interference in balance between limits - infrastructure becomes architecture. The most fascinating potentials for infrastructure in the city are in its ability to shape and inform political developments. Roads, rather than serving the automobile only, at times complicate its way and open for public use. Such conditions, while difficult, have a beauty all their own.
The proposition that infrastructure is a form of architecture embodies a tacit that architecture is a public work. The word infrastructure is tossed loosely about in contemporary discourse - it is applied to phenomena ranging from sewer and highways to the underpinning of economies and social networks. The term emerged when we needed a way to explain a new world order; a change in what had been not only geographically distinct systems, but also politically and operationally autonomous ones. From this point of view, infrastructures of mobility are the prime candidates to become a public space, or a public form that is true and proper to the exigencies and demands of a modern urban society.
5
Robin Evans has remarked, architecture is ‘an opportunity to improve the human condition;’ yet it is understood as a toolbox of new and existing procedures can be expanded by reference to architecture’s traditional alliance with territorial organization. (Allen, 48). Biased toward expediting movement and intermittently resistant to supporting other forms of inhabitation, transportation infrastructure is an archaic monument of mono-functional use. However, with increasing levels of urban density and speed of urbanization throughout the world, infrastructure in the city is an under-worked territory that must be given a larger agenda. Infrastructure works not to propose specific buildings on given sites, but to construct the site itself. It organizes and manages complex systems of flow, movement and exchange. It is an architectural project of the city.
Hadrian’s consolidation of the Roman Empire through the building of roads and cities, (Stoll & Lloyd, 112)
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There have been utopian projects where architecture was imagined as an infrastructural system. In 1962,Van Eyck brought a plan (‘De Ark van Noach’) by his student Piet Blom, and explained it in terms of his 'tree-leaf' diagram(Stoll & Lloyd, 20). In this plan, Van Eyck tried to demonstrate the inseparable reciprocity between the house and the city, a reciprocity he saw as being expressed in an exemplary, poetic fashion by Blom's design. 'Noah's Ark' used a modular approach to avoid any hierarchical dominance. These structures of multiplicity followed van Eyck’s concept of the city as a big house, with many rooms.Arguably, Blom's proposal was to produce a total infrastructure, subsuming and exploding the objects of architecture within an infrastructural system.
Municipal Orphanage in Amsterdam, 1960 (Aldo van Eyck)&De Ark van Noach’ (Noach’s Arch, 1962)
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Similarly, the Free University in Berlin, conceived by the architectural firm Candilis-Josic-Woods, explored the modular approach as to expand architecture into a total infrastructure that extended the social and Utopian agendas. Candilis, Josic, and Woods explored the urban issues that the Free University project encouraged, and the exchanges among different disciplines, resulted in a heterogeneous, multilevel grid that increased urban density at the site. The concept of linking stem with web in the ground-scraper at the Free University building culminated in a hybrid connecting they horizontal high-rise structure to the ground in a manner that unites architecture with social sciences, engineering, and urbanism.
Masterplan of the Free University in Berlin, 19631974 (Krunic, 2012)
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Instead of outlining the building envelope as the basis for an urban plan, the architects proposes that the stem, which resembles a capillary distribution system, become the driving tool. This tool connects a building directly to the end of the smallest street, and allows for a continuous extension into any neighborhood. Following the stem is the most comprehensive structuring concept for the urban realm of this project: the web. Architecture and planning are united when discussing the organization of interconnected places that invite a wide range of activities. The web is a polycentric environmental system in that many individual actions focus attention on peripheral locations. The web was a system more homogeneous than the stem--it was a “stem to the next degree,� permitting limitless development of an area unified by a circulation network. In contrast to the vertical high rise, a horizontal skyscraper integrated with the ground maintains density but loses the planes of isolation, while encouraging activity, mobility, and integration
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At the same time, Kevin Lynch and Donald Appleyard’s The view from the road (1964) made contribution of another kind - infrastructure as the scenography of the territory. The project speaks about ‘aesthetics of the highway’. However, they rather restricted themselves to an aesthetic from the highway: while the road makes a dynamic impression on the driver and his passengers, it also exists as a static, bulky object in the landscape, a substantial piece of the urban scene for those who live along its borders. But the prioritization of the view from the road over another road is not a coincidence but re-articulates the project of roadway design in a much longer tradition of landscape picturesque, proper to the English landscape tradition, and already explored by Robert Moses in his 1920s parkway designs around NYC. The road has become a system, and while Lynch acknowledges its importance as an object, its role of reorganizing spatial, social and political syntaxes was never spoken.
Kevin Lynch and Donald Appleyard, The view from the road (1964)
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Architecture as a system Therefore,to understand the evolution of architecture as an infrastructural project, a comparison between Serlio’s ‘ScenaTragica’ and Pierre Patte’ssection of a street published in his Memoiressur les objects les plus importants should be made. While Serlio’s view focuses on the relationship between the building façade and the wide public space, Patte’s section focuses on the relationship between infrastructure (the street, the sewers, the drainage system) and houses. Both cases address the space of circulation as the main datum of the city, but in Patte’s case, urban space is shown in relationship with the apartment interior(Aureli, 30). In Serlio’s perspective, the city is made up of clearly representative architectural forms, whereas in Patte’s section the city is represented as mere infrastructure, as an anonymous machine for living. Patte’s section is not only a clear manifestation of the shift in importance from architect to engineer, but also demonstrate the expanded role of design within the organization of the city. In this case, design is no longer manifested merely through figurative forms, but through generic prototypes that addresses the city as a holistic system.
Serlio’s ‘Scena Tragica’ and Patte’s section of a street
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Eugène Hénard also illustrated his temptation to address architecture as an integral system with infrastructure. He firmly criticized the old traditional idea that “the bottom of the road must be on a level with the ground in its original condition” as where all the evils arise. He then hypothesized the first principle that “the pavement and carriage-way must be artificially constructed at a sufficient height to allow there under a space capable of containing all the installations needed for the service of the road”(Hénard, 347-367). This implies an additional floor underground for the neighboring houses, inasmuch as the ground floor would thus be raised to the level of the street. He made a comparison between the old, traditional default streets and houses types of his time, and the new street section he proposed. The default type was criticized that the arrangements are inconvenient, and the sanitary provisions are deplorable. All these pipes and tubes are located above or beside one another, without order or method. The later one shows the plan and section of a road constructed in accordance with his new conception.
Street and house type vs. New Concept for future Paris
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To sum up: this arrangement means that the present street would be made into two streets: one above in the open air, solely intended for the passage of light vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and the other located below, on a level with the ground and underneath the former, which would serve as a conduit for all the pipe systems, the removal of house refuse, and the transport of heavy materials and goods. By the expansion of such a plan, he further proposed a city in which all the streets with heavy traffic would have--according to the frequency of the traffic--three or four superimposed platforms. The first platform would be for pedestrians and carriages, the second for the tramway, the third for the various mains and pipes required for the removal of refuse, and the fourth for the transport of goods, &c.
Multiple levels of street as infrastructural system, (HĂŠnard, 350)
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II
Hospital as an Urban Framework Hospital should be recognized for the critical tensions between its emergence as an institution and its role in projecting an alternative organization for the social and material order in an urban territory
Hospital as a regulatory urban framework Large urban hospitals are comprised of their own unique streets, neighborhoods, districts, landmarks, complete with a housing realm, a governance realm, and transportation amenities including auto parking and connections to public transit, and even a commercial-business realm. An example is The University Medical Center Groningen (UMCG) (1983-2003) in the Netherlands, which is the largest university healthcare center in the northern part of the country. With 1300 beds and 8500 employees, it is one of the largest hospitals in the European Union (Verderber, 121). The main ‘city street’ level contains a bank, stores, pharmacy, specialty health-equipment stores, numerous outpatient clinics, a grocery store, cafĂŠ, and gardens. Sixteen fledging companies in the biomedical and medical technology field have already been established on the UNCG campus.
The University Medical Groningen (UMCG)
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Total revenues for MASCO member institutions were $7.7 billion.
construction as of Fallrevenue 2012. Total net patient service for LMA medical institutions was nearly $4.1 billion dollars.
roofs approximately 31 high albedo (white) roofs. or quadrangles locatedmillion on top of in state income tax revenues LMA payroll ofand over $2.26 billion generated an Parks estimated $119.8 structures at grade represent another three “green roofs” in the LMA. for the Commonwealth.
Massachusetts was the number two state recipient of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in FY increased by 6%. Longwood Medical Area | Harvard Medical 2011, following California, receiving $2.5 billion dollars.School The LMA is responsible for $1.03 billion in Energy efficiency initiatives have saved 4.4 million kWh of electricity, equivalent to the average annual a small college. NIH funding, or consumption forty-oneofpercent of the Massachusetts’ total.
If the LMA were ranked as a state, it would be number eight, after North Carolina, and before Washington state. ECONOMIC
Total revenues for MASCO member institutions were $7.7 billion. NIH funds are used to find causes of common and rare diseases and accelerate cures for the Total net patientLMA serviceresearch revenue for LMA medical institutions nearly $4.1cancer, billion dollars. community. Among specialties are: was diabetes, heart diseases, AIDs, sleep apnea, and genetic disorders. LMA payroll of over $2.26 billion generated an estimated $119.8 million in state income tax revenues
Fifteen LEED certifiable or certified buildings have been built in the LMA, including nine Gold, three Silver, and three Certifiable buildings. Another nine LEED buildings are planned, approved or under
‘Cool Roofs’ help reduce the heat island effect in the LMA, of these there are four completed green
Due to significant efforts by MASCO and its members the number of drive-alone commuters has
dropped 13% in the last decade while transit & useEds) has increased 5%, and walking and bicycling has Medical + Education (Meds
Over 21% of member waste (over 6 million pounds) is recycled or composted.
for the Commonwealth.
WORKFORCE/ COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Massachusetts was the number two state recipient of National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding in FY 2011, following California, receiving $2.5 billion dollars. The LMA is responsible for $1.03 billion in NIH funding, or forty-one percent of the Massachusetts’ total.
Members generate significant community benefits annually, such as:
If the LMA were ranked as a state, it would be number eight, after North Carolina, and before Washington state.
NIH funds are used to find causes of common and rare diseases and accelerate cures for the community. Among LMA research specialties are: diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, AIDs, sleep apnea, and genetic disorders.
3
WORKFORCE/ COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT Members generate significant community benefits annually, such as: 3
Longwood Medical Area | Harvard Medical School
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Medical + Education (Meds & Eds) Perelman Medical School (Pennsylvania)
Perelman School of Medicine | University of Pennsylvania
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Medical + Education (Meds & Eds) Dell Medical School | The University of Texas at Austin
Dell Medical School | The University of Texas at Austin
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Typological Studies
Hospital typologies can be differentiated through specific elements of the hospital program; for example showing how the four basic components, treatment areas (including theaters), wards (nursing units), outpatients (including diagnostics) and servicing are arranged, together with the associated service and circulation cores.
Chronology of Hospital Development
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Hospital as an economic driver
However, some of the issues with this type of dense and constrained clusters of healthcare facilities should be examined. These medical centers are often remote to peripheral communities of the city, and concentration of transportation systems due to the high density can cause traffic issues. Furthermore, large scale of buildings and far distance among facilities within the urban healthcare campus, which are often vehicle-prohibited inside, can result in exhausting patient experience. Therefore longer-term plans of health care systems for more dispersed networks of facilities and programs embedded in communities should be envision as a different future for health care campuses. As outpatient services and medical office buildings move away from inpatient-focused campuses to be closer to patients in neighborhood centers and suburban locations, health care campuses can evolve into health care communities. Accompanying the hypothesis of healthcare communities, research departments should be integrated into the hospital facilities. In addition to traditional partnerships, such as those with physician groups, healthcare organizations should be expanded beyond the boundaries of their campuses and into the community for businesses, including healthcare–related retail, fitness, wellness, and support services. In the redistribution of care, some services are beginning to move away from the central healthcare campuses. Over time, this migration will open up new possibilities for healthcare communities, creating space for other uses, including residential, hospitality, and retail, that will attract interest from developers and reshape medical districts. Consider an innovative and integrated healthcare campus with inpatient, outpatient, physician, medical, and surgical, services spanning birth to elderly, with users from different age, ethnicity, social and economic background reaching out for a variety of services directly or indirectly linked to healthcare industry, a new city is born out of these migrating populations driven by healthcare industry, and the movements and flows are enabled by infrastructures that sprawls through the new city. It is within this framework that healthcare infrastructure gains its instrumentality in shaping and reconfiguring urban territorial forms and development.
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Translational Medicine
A first step is to collocate clinical and research programs within the same building. To further enhance integration, a strong spatial feature that visually links the clinical and research entities is often utilized. It has also been noted when patients have views to the research labs, it conveys a sense of confidence in the institution, where they are constantly aware that researchers and oncologists are working together to find new breakthroughs. As an added enhancement, an open stairway within the atrium further contributes to a feeling of communication and connectivity. For example, at the Pennsylvania State University Hershey Medical Center Cancer Institute, a five-story “beehive� atrium visually links the research and clinical floors into a focused unity.
Patient Care
Research
Education
Trilogy: Patient Care + Research + Education
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The new Cedars-Sinai Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion will be a flexible physical environment that collocates teaching, research, and clinical care to create a synergistic model focused on the patient Innovations in technology, operational transformations, economic competition and governmental regulations are all driving hospitals to be more adaptable in its functions. For example, clinical research is a critical component of the emerging model and instead of researchers working off site in sequestered laboratories, they should be brought closer to clinicians and patients. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, the new $350 million Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion (AHSP), opened in 2013, places outpatient care, medical and scientific research, and graduate and professional education all in one place on a compact site on the 24-acre urban campus
The new Cedars-Sinai Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion
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III
Healthcare: an examination of China China is facing unprecedented challenges brought by rapid urban development, and the healthcare industry has to accommodate both quantitative and qualitative needs
Healthcare in China Top 10 Medical Cities (Quality-based research) in China
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Healthcare in China Top Medical cities High-speed bullet train network | 1hour travel radiation
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Healthcare in China Top hospitals High-speed bullet train network | 1hour travel radiation
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Healthcare in Jiangsu Province Healthcare Revenue / GDP (percentage) of top cities in Jiangsu
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Healthcare in Nanjing Geographical / Population / GDP data of Nanjing
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Healthcare in Nanjing Geographical / Population / GDP data of Nanjing
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Healthcare in Nanjing Nanjing in geographical relationship to Shanghai
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Healthcare in Nanjing Statistical Research: Nanjing - Shanghai - Beijing
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IV
Site Investigation The search begins in the new town of Nanjing River-west area.
2007-10-09 Urban Sprawl Tendencies (City-wide)
37
2010-11-21
2013-07-11
2016-03-15
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Urban sprawl tendencies: River-west as one of the new urban developments
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Distribution of Medical Resources
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Location The river - west new downtown has been booming in the recent decade due to new policies focusing on economic and urban development on this area as the ‘second city center’. However, there are few issues accompanying this rapid urbanization: the predominantly constructed ground infrastructural system rigidly divided the area into numerous zoned yet not developed parcels which renders the new district a rather vacant city. Besides that, shifts in central government urban policies and real estate market has slowed down the urbanization process of the district. Understanding its crucial geographical and economic role of Nanjing urban conditions, river - west new downtown await for an alternative approach that reconfigures its territorial organization and stimulates the economic development.
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The story behind In order to facilitate the 2014 youth Olympic Games, the municipal government sold the fish-mouth area to developers in order to fund the construction of infrastructure and arenas for the mega event.
Municipal Government
Developer
Fish-mouth Development
Olympic Site
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Metro-system of Nanjing (Fish mouth) River-west new town area
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The Nanjing river - west new downtown is the key point of the Nanjing city development strategy of “one city, three urban areas�. The river--west center area have already basically build up material entity according to the position of city’s vice-center. Two requirements for the urban development are programmatic diversity and public space (Chen, 65). The programmatic diversity is manifested through the zoning of programs in the central area - though hybridizing business, cultural and residential, to reduce the population difference over daytime and nighttime, reducing the traffic burden. The public space is delivered through integrating green space and civic squares into urban center to allow for active urban life. Similar to what happened to Barcelona Olympics, the planning and implementation of urban investment were accelerated by the mega-events (Poynter, 74-75). In this way, the mass transit project in river - west new downtown,which normally would take decades to approve and implement, completed in a period of approximately 5 years.
Nanjing River-west Real Estate Market Price (Increasing number vs. stagnant development)
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Site vs. Longwood Medical Area
Site vs. Perelman Medical School
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Site vs. Dell Medical School
Nanjing Urban area is 6582km2, with population of 6.4 m (statistics of 2011) civilians with hukou and 8.1m residents. There are 1107 medical institutions (excluding private and small clinics), within which 196 are hospitals, 141 are community clinics, 688 are community healthcare stations, 82 are public healthcare facilities, and in total constitutes 40473 beds (Chen, 83-88). Although in recent year the medical industry has been rapidly developed, under the issues brought by rapid urbanization, aging population, economic transformation and change of lifestyle, the conflict between demand for high quality medical service and the shortage of service is rendered more dramatic.
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The context of Nanjing Healthcare Industry
Challenges lying ahead: 1.) Medical resource is overly centered at major urban hospitals. 2.) High-quality institutions and services are centered in the old city center, leaving the new towns (including rive-west) underdeveloped. 3). Underdeveloped healthcare structure cannot meet the new demand of accommodating for elderly, new-born and mental illness. 4). The current medical and healthcare capacity cannot sustain the growth of medical needs of Nanjing-centered metropolitan region .
合理分工、密
系，实现分级
的基本健康问
区居民能够享
平相适应的卫
3.2.3 合理配置 建设
目前，南
慢性非传染性
为南京市居民
医院较为缺乏
口出生高峰，
服务设施的建
础上，通过技
幼保健分中心
健服务。同时 图 2 医疗资源空间管制规划图
源结构与居民
图 3 市域医院规划分布图
还应重点加强 表 5 医疗卫生相关指标预测
西医、耳鼻喉
规划指标
城市常住人口 ( 万人 ) 每千人床位数 ( 张 / 千人 ) 总床位数 ( 张 ) 床均用地面积 (m2/ 张 ) 医疗卫生设施占地面积 (hm2)
的建设。
规划期限指标预测 现状 2012 年 4 月
近期 2015 年
远期 2020 年
811 5.02 40 743 116.2 510.5
960 6.0 57 600 110.0 ～ 120.0 662.4
1 060 6.5 68 900 ≥ 120.0 ＞ 826.8
专科医院
统筹布局，既
的服务需求，
置齐全、突出
3.2.4 严格执行
卫生设施体系
城市各级 未来发展的重要区域，是医疗设施规划
区；资源稳定区为建邺区和雨花台区；
控制中心应按
的重点地段。完善医疗体系建设有利于
资源发展区为栖霞区、江宁区、浦口区、
格执行国家有
提高该地区的综合服务水平。
六合区、溧水区和高淳区。结合南京市
以考虑在区域
规划明确空间管制要求，将南京
近期城市建设发展的重点，积极鼓励在
便业务上的联
全市分为资源控制区、资源稳定区和
河西新城、南部新城、麒麟科技园、江
进一步完
资源发展区三类地区。资源控制区指
北新城、仙林新城和东山副城等设置医
建设，逐步解
Distribution of Healthcare Resource in Nanjing, Chen, 86
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There are four challenges that the healthcare industry in Nanjing is facing. Firstly, medical resource is overly centered at major urban hospitals. According to statistics, all healthcare institutions in the city contribute to 40473 beds, of which 84.4% are provided by hospitals, with only 5473 beds provided by healthcare stations and clinics, which are provided with rather cruel service facilities. This has caused uneven distribution of patients over the city, increasing the burdens of major hospitals. Second, high-quality institutions and services are centered in the old city enter, leaving the new towns (including river-west) underdeveloped. The numbers of healthcare institutions are dramatic over different districts, presenting apparent tendency of centralizing in Gulou district, which is the old city center, with it covering 16.3% of city-wide medical institutions, 15.6% of comprehensive hospitals and 60% specialized hospitals. The allocation of beds is imbalanced as well, with Gulou district covering at least 31% beds, which leads to the result that counting the population of Gulou district, the ratio is 114.2/10k people, and 320.9/km2. In contrast, the peripheral districts (PukouLuhe, Jiangning, Lishui and Gaochun) have 47.8% of city population, 88.3% of city land, but are only provided with 30.3% beds, which is only equivalent to the bed number of Gulou district. Lishui and Gaochun are specifically underdeveloped as the ratio is only 25/10k people. The development levels among satellite districts and the central district are dramatically different, leading to unbalanced geographical allocation of resources. Third, the underdeveloped healthcare structure cannot meet the new demands. With aging population, the geriatrics healthcare facilities for elderly cannot sustain the growing aged population. With the revocation of one child policy, the gynecology and pediatrics institutions are under challenge. With the rapid urban life, mental health is increasingly important. But there are only 3 mental hospitals providing 350 beds, which cannot meet the growing demand. Therefore, specialized hospitals should be advocated to sustain these changes. Lastly, the current medical capacity cannot sustain the growth of Nanjing-centered metropolitan region. The healthcare institutions covers the radial area of North of Jiangsu province and South of Anhui province. Currently among the patients in 3rd level hospitals in Nanjing, 20% outpatients and 30% inpatients are not locals. With the increasingly completed comprehensive urban functions of Nanjing, this rate is projected to grow even further. It is anticipated that by 2020 Nanjing will hold population over 10m and this will deliver more challenge to the existing healthcare system in Nanjing.
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Chinese Zoning Policies
1. Grant from the central government for the construction of urban infrastructure was inadequate. But infrastructure was fundamental to attract potential investors. This may lead to rather unsustainable tactics by local governments such as selling large residential lands in return for funds to construct infrastructure. 2. Two main characteristics explain the urban model deployed over China: the strict pyramid structure of the Chinese planning system, and the hyper-functionalist approach of the urban planning protocol. The construction of new Chinese cities proceeds according to a strictly top-down, hyper-quantitative, matrix-based functionalist method.
Zoning / Planning Guide for River-west area, Image obtained from Nanjing Hexi New City District Headquarters Of Develop Construction
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China operates a dual land use ownership system that is divided into the state ownership in urban areas and the collective ownership in the rural areas. This feature significantly impacts Chinese city and regional planning, typically its planning management (Yu, 245). For example, grant from the central government for the construction of urban infrastructure was far from adequate to take on large-scale land development. But at the same time infrastructure construction was believed fundamental for the competitiveness of a locality to potential investors (Zhu, 90). This may lead to rather unsustainable development tactics by the local governments such as selling large lands for residential developments in return for investments to construction of infrastructural projects. At the same time, Chinese planning ideology revolves around detailed standard and urban functions, leaving little room for qualitative considerations, discussions airing other points of view as to how to lay out cities, and dialogue with local stakeholders, in particular populations. Two main characteristics explain the urban model deployed over the country as a whole: the strict pyramid structure of the Chinese planning system, and the hyper-functionalist approach of the urban planning protocol. China has a set standard for urban land use per inhabitant, determined by the national document “Standards for urban use and construction”, which plays a key role in urban planning. This figure is approximately 100m² per person (Curien, 25). Once the number of square meters of land to be urbanized has been defined, the proportions allocated to the various urban functions need to be set. The construction of new Chinese cities proceeds according to a hyper-quantitative, matrix-based functionalist method, reflected as a pyramid structure from the plan allocating land to be urbanized, which is drawn up in Beijing, to the proportioning of every urban block in each new city, and is embodied by urban zoning on a vast scale. This urban entrepreneurialism has brought with it increasingly acute problems in terms of territorial coherence and environmental balance at a regional level. Although considerable attention was to the planning procedures, including the legacy planning, the problem Nanjing river - west new downtown is currently facing is the stagnancy of urban development from the private developers’ side, and the urban segmentation caused by mass infrastructure as a public project. One way of counteracting the inertia is to advocate for public institutions such as schools or hospitals. As already discussed, healthcare community has its instrumentality for territorial organization due to its ability to attract industry-related economic activities as well as providing the region with jobs and social affairs, which will foster private development. At the same time, its integration with infrastructure will alternate the existing segmentation thus to reorganize the spatial configuration.
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V
Intervention Strategy Taking advantage of the 20-meter interstitial space between the public infrastructure and the private property line to implant the proposed prototypes that incorporates healthcare and functions
53
Speculation: The proposal begins with the attempt of bridging between infrastructure and public institutions, in this case, the hospitals, and between the topdown (planning) and bottom-up (civic) ideologies. Taking the mega-infrastructure as the urban spine from where the urban development extends. At the same time, the intervention is carried inside the 20-meter interstitial space between the mega-infrastructure (public) and the already zoned parcels (private). Implanting the proposal in this 20-meter space not only allows it to serve as the mediator between public and private, but also facilitates its instrumentality as the bridge between urban areas segmented by the infrastructural projects..
54
55
Existing Mega-infrastructure
Proposed Healthcare/infrastructural channel
Consequential Urban Development
Extended medical/research education campus
56
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Typology Study Examining basic outpatient programs: radiology, pediatrics, dental, examination rooms, transfusion rooms and minor patient rooms. These essential outpatient programs are extracted and then aggregating into new typologies that is structured along a linear composition that works the best with he existing linear infrastructure. These prototypes will then further multiply along the existing linear infrastructure.
58
59
Urban Healthcare Prototypes This produces new spatial prototypes which are then inserted into the urban fabric at a series of key parcels. These public programs are selected to intentionally harness the accelerated implementation of mobility infrastructure to drive large-scale spatial transformation in the city’s interstices. By operations in the interstitial spaces between parcels and the mobility infrastructure, the project can overcome urban fragmentation. Mobility infrastructure and Healthcare facilities are thus used to stimulate the redistribution of development and the construction of anew spatial and social order for river-west new town area.
60
61
62
Prototype A | Bifurcation
63
Prototype B
| Interconnection
Prototype c | Transference
64
65
Proposed Holistic Urban System These prototypes mediate the particularities of each site, while giving formal legibility to its spatial syntax at the scale of an architectural mega-form. This formal operation is combined with a programmatic remixing of typologies, resulting in a hybrid piece of urban equipment with a series of Healthcare Mobility Centers. Although serving as the mediator between the two pairs of dualities, the project were given instrumentality by incorporating public programs such as gallery, retail and education.
66
VI
Proposed Urban Environment Providing the site with an alternative paradigm of urban development, integrating TOD principles and healthcare industry.
69
The proposed prototypes serve as the spine of future urban development
70
71
View of vehicles on the infrastructural channels
72
73
View of pedestrians under the infrastructure
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Interior view of the integration of healthcare and urban activities
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Perspective Section, looking through the prototypes and the urban activities
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Conclusion: The thesis proposal searches for an alternative paradigm to revitalize an urban area through integration of the existing mega-infrastructure and the proposed healthcare industry. Examining precedents of western cities where hospitals played the essential roles to bring economic development as the driver for urban development, the thesis hopes to bring this paradigm to Nanjing river-west area, to better integrate urban development, healthcare industries and civic activities that are envisioned to happen. Establishing superstructures that interconnects the subway, ground vehicular traffic, the light tail and pedestrian in an urban area, where large-scale infrastructure was constructed as a result of mega-event and inter-city competition, the project seeks for a holistic urban system that reconnects the existing infrastructural projects and the future architectural projects. The thesis strives to offer a new approach, other than the conventional commercial-lead development in China. This approach is intended to offer a solution to the emerging phenomena in China: well-built infrastructure but not very well integrated urban system.
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