2012 2013
Urbino
International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design
Workshop
ISBN XXX Copyright Š 2015 ILAUD. International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design via Giovanni Cantoni, 4 - 20144 Milano, Italy www.ilaud.eu Edizione LuluPress. www.lulu.com Editing and graphic design Riccardo Feligiotti, Davide Luca, Connie Occhialini
ABOUT ILA&UD
The International Laboratory of Architecture and Urban Design, ILAUD is a free association – founded in Italy in 1976 by Giancarlo De Carlo – among Universities, cultural institutions, individual persons and scholars whose interests are focused on the problems of physical environment. ILAUD activities are carried on through laboratories based on studio work, seminars and lectures. Laboratories take place where there are particularly relevant issues that need to be studied in depth. Design is used as a tool for exploring issues and suggest tentative solutions that can be useful also for other cases. Research projects and studios on these issues are further developed on a more permanent basis by the Schools of Architecture and Planning associated with ILAUD.
This century is facing three issues that force us to reflect seriuosly about the future and to put forward new proposals for the human habitat, the cities, the territory. The environment is increasingly degradeted, with terrible consequences for human life. Most of the world population lives in urban settlements most of which reach dozens of millions of inhabitants, and this trend doesn’t seem to be slowing down. Inequalities in the use of physical resources, dwellings, access to services are increasing and cannot be solved “naturally”. ILAUD can and must contribute to the solution of these fundamental problems.
ILAUD’s current activity is focused on three issues that are among the most urgent and at the same time difficult that the world is facing. They are the conservation and innovation of cities and landscapes (or of the man-made environment), the adjustment of the modern city to new needs and challenges, largescale urbanization and sustainability. ILAUD aims to approach these issues in an original and innovative way which can also produce positive and realistic answers to existing problems. Its objective is to suggest solutions that are neither produced by current market interests nor by academic dreams, but that can contribute to solve specific issues. From 1976 to 2003 the activities were held in Italy; now they are organized in the most important emerging countries of Latin America, Asia, Africa that will play a very important cultural role in the future. Themes and problems that have a strong local identity and at the same time are common to every region in the world are studied. Recently ILAUD has curryed out a number of activities in Italy and Urbino, its original home.
ILAUD workshops and seminars
Kanazawa 2012 “The Future of the Rural Villages around Tai Lake”
2011 “New Value for Historical City. Sustainability Livability Continuity” 2010 “A Return to 13 Hongs”
Suzhou Guangzhou
2008 “Culture and the City”
Delhi
Jericho 2013. ?? 2012 “The Ideal Future”
2009 “When New Cities Grow Old”
Urbino
Curitiba 2006 “Nature and the City”
Buenos Aires
7
Workshop2012
Urbino
The Ideal Future
Contents
Introduction p 8 - ILAUD 2012. Back to Urbino Paolo Ceccarelli p 10 - The Ideal Future Etra Connie Occhialini p 12 - Towns along the Metauro RIver and Small Villages in the Territory of Urbino Etra Connie Occhialini
Workshop p 16 - Urbania Metauro RIver Region Integrated to the New Green Network Text by RIccardo Feligiotti p 26 - Sant’Angelo in Vado A Rediscovery of the Environmental Qualities Text by Xin Luo p 30 - Canavaccio Fruit(i)ON: an Incremental Strategy for the Regeneration of the Village Text by Martin Broz, Davide Luca p 36 - Schieti A Possible Way of Setting Issues and Making Proposals Text by ?
Seminar p 42 - The Rural Villages in Suzhou: Limits of the Modernization of the Chinese Countryside Giulio Verdini p 54 - Shunde Competition The DIfferent Approaches to the Future of a Large Chinese City Hao Hao Xu p 68 - Local Planning in Palestine: the Heritage and the Reforms Rani Daoud, Azzam Alhjouj
Introduction ILAUD 2012. BACK TO URBINO Paolo Ceccarelli
Isolated territories and new networking technologies
Past heritage and innovation based on local resources
Global issues and local context. Great changes are taking place everywhere in the world. Regardless of the political systems that run the countries all the economies are experiencing major crises, societies are becoming increasingly unbalanced and segregated, technological innovations gain momentum and unexpectedly change the way individuals interrelate, social groups communicate, firms make goods and services, and culture is produced. The traditional spatial organization and the way the urban systems work are strongly affected by these changes. Recent mass political mobilization in Arab countries, the global success of social networks, the increasing role of “open innovation” and “crowd sourcing” in the industrial and services economy are examples of a process that in the near future will change substantially also the space in which we live. Urbino and its territory as a case study. Urbino and its territory in the past played a marginal role because of their physical isolation. Now they can improve their condition thanks to the new digital infrastructure. They can integrate with different regions of the world and can become attractive and competitive because of the peculiar kind and quality of life they offer. These are extremely valuable resources that can and must be taken advantage of and further enhanced. Main issues to address. Infrastructure, community, landscape. It is worthwhile to study new kinds of sustainable habitat, strongly integrated in the nature and concerned with landscape protection; new types of affordable housing and forms of co-housing; services sharing, co-working, alternative solutions for the supply of services; innovative technology for energy production; organic agriculture; alternative transportation. This work must be done with the participation and the support of the whole local community. It will suggest new types of social organization and urban management. Once again the challenge is to turn a supposed weakness in an opportunity, and Urbino and its region are a very good laboratory to research and elaborate on crucial issues they have to deal with and that present societies in general are facing. The discussion that developed in the seminar and during a field trip in the territory of Urbino (April 13-15) suggested to focus the work of the laboratory on few interrelated issues which are relevant both at a local and a more general level. It also suggested to take the existing spatial structure (made of a main center, a system of villages and hamlets, areas with dispersed
houses, well preserved rural areas, woods, mountains) as an appropriate case for research and design. Urbino is a good microcosm for exploring processes, designing solutions, making plans. And the nowadays crucial issue of the improvement of social and economic conditions, personal interrelationships, the system of services not only in low density rural areas and in smaller human settlements but also in fragmented and segregated cities can be properly studied there. This choice was motivated by the following reasons. Its poor accessibility from the rest of the region and the nation and among its spatial components is a structural weakness of Urbino and its territory. The selected case studies can allow to explore these conditions and their consequences which are obviously not exclusive of the Urbino region. A second issue concerns the distribution of the population in hamlets and individual houses scattered over a very wide territory. These small settlements are inhabited either by elderly who frequently live alone and have difficult access to services or by nuclear families of commuters whose life styles do not help to create a local community. They lack higher level services and have precarious relationships both with Urbino and the main urban centers of the Adriatic coast. At the same time they are places where the new generation grows up and therefore adequate facilities for education and socialization are necessary. These conditions suggest to experiment new types of services, new housing models, new forms of work organization, and so on. Finally there is the problem of conserving a high quality cultural landscape such as the one of the Urbino territory and Montefeltro, where over the centuries human action was perfectly integrated with nature. At present there is the risk that these characteristics be altered by unplanned building activity, out of scale transport infrastructure, solar plants and windmills, etc. A possible balance between conservation requirements and pressures for change must be studied in depth.
The territory around Urbino Urbino is the administrative centre of a large territory. Despite its extent, the resident population (excluding foreign students and commuters) is about 15 thousands, spread out in 16 villages throughout the territory of the municipality, so that the density is scarcely 64 inhabitants per square km. Apart from those who live in tiny hamlets on the mountains, most people gathers in tonws and large villages arose along the two main rivers: the Matauro on the South and the Foglia on the North. Urbino is located in the middle between the two valleys
Schieti
FOGLIA RIVER VALLEY
Urbino
Sant’Angelo in Vado
Urbania
Fermignano
Canavaccio
The 2012 ILAUD laboratory TOWNS ALONG THE METAURO RIVER AND SMALL VILLAGES IN THE TERRITORY OF URBINO Etra Connie Occhialini
Fossombrone
METAURO RIVER VALLEY
First presentation of the region. Urbino rises up in the middle of a hilly territory run by two rivers: Foglia which flows in the Nothern part, joining the Adriatic Sea in the city of Pesaro, and Metauro that reaches the sea in the city of Fano in the South. They both have ecological and landscaping values that have to be balanced with different situations of human pressure given by urbanization, infrastructures and uses for manufactoring activities along their stream. The Metauro played also an important role for the historical development of the region being the reason for the birth of many towns in the past, especiallly during the Roman period, full of archeological remains and other subsequent works of art. The main historic towns developed following the handles of the Metauro are Fossombrone, Fermignano, Urbania and Sant’Angelo in Vado. They are made up by a historic city center and newly built expansion, due to the lively manufacturing aactivities. Urbania is famous for its ceramic production; Fermignano and Fossombrone for the textile production. The Metauro valley still has an uncontaminated landscape with some scattered hamlets and farms, and large stretches of agricultural land. Since it is a very important resource for holiday farms, organic food production, ecological friendly activities, the valley must be protected from alterations produced by new transportation infrastructure, plants for the production of alternative energy, invasive urbanization. The village of Schieti (altitude 147m., 382 inhabitants) located in the northern section of the municipal territory, 6.44 kilometers from Urbino, is a medieval fortified rural village in an isolated hilly area. During the last century positive changes in accessibility and in the economic base were introduced. Unluckily they lasted only few decades. The economy was based on agriculture and mining that gave rise to small industries. Most of these factories are no more in operation, except a famous clothing factory. At present Schieti is a small marginal and under-populated place, with poor services, mainly inhabited by elderly. Younger workers commute to Urbino and other larger centers of the region. Family based tourism takes place in the Summer. The village of Canavaccio (altitude 174 m., 827 inhabitants) is 6. 27 km from Urbino and has good road connections with the cities along the coast and with Rome. Several industrial plants and commercial activities are located there. Its population is mainly composed by young families. People either work in the industrial park of Canavaccio or commute to the nearby centers of Fermignano, Urbino, Fossombrone. The social and economic life there is quite different from the one in Schieti but high rank services still lack and the social fabric is fragmented .
San Marino
Schieti / Foglia River Valley
Urbino
G. De Carlo students’ dormitory
Ducal Palace
Metauro River Valley
Workgroup1 SANT’ANGELO IN VADO // A REDISCOVERY OF THE ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITIES MEMBERS: Antonio Di Mambro / MIT, Boston Masayuki Hikita / Waseda University Abel Sylva Lizcano / PoliMil Xin Luo / Scut Guangzhou Yumi Sato / Waseda University
Historic evolution of the town Sant’Angelo in Vado has a Roman origin, but there is no physical evidence in the urban structure, since it was completely destroyed during the Gothic war. The discovery of an old Roman villa with mosaic reveals the flourishing social and economic life at the period. Today the archeological site, though it was excavated and protected by a covering, is a sort of “hidden treasure”. Infact despite its proximity to the rest of the town, it lays on a wheatfield, completely disconnected from the network of the paths. After the fall of the Roman empire, Sant’Angelo was repopulated in the Medieval age thanks to the affordable passage (the “vado”) on Metauro river. The town continued to play an important political role in the region, becoming first the seat of the religious power of the bishop, later the meeting point of the Parliament of the Province of Massa Trabaria, that run a large territory around the Appennines. From the economic and artistic point of view, the town was famous for its tradition in handicraft, in particular for gold and silversmiths. whose process dated back to the Etruscans. In the modern period Sant’Angelo improved more and more its relationship with Urbino, sharing the seat of the Diocese with the ducal city. Today Sant’Angelo is famous for the “tartufo bianco”, the white truffle that is a typical product of these region.
Roman villa Catwalk and covering on the mosaic of the archeological site
A rediscovery of the environmental qualities of Metauro River in Sant’Angelo in Vado Purpose: Make full use of the natural resources, histories, and rich and diverse human activities in this section of Metauro River. Objectives: 2.5 Kilometers Exploration Along the Metauro River
Maps of analysis water system, topography, road system Conceptual diagram A string of pearls along the Metauro
KEYWORDS: Exploration, Experience, Education, Enjoyment We divided the experience of this exploration all the way down the Metauro river into 4 part. Each part captures a unique sense of the river and town.
1. NATURAL EXPERIENCE a) industrial area. Consolidate and reorganize the industrial development eventually decreasing the size and introducing the original landscape b) Sasso natural park. River edge pathway 0 Kilometer food restaurant Fishing, in a traditional way, in the lake of Cascata del Sasso 2. COUNTRYSIDE EXPERIENCE a) experiencing the country landscape. b) lively elderly people community. “Multi-Place” lifestyle Involvement of younger generations into the community 3. URBAN EXPERIENCE a) urban common ground. Qualitative public facilities and common ground b) natural park fixed into history and landscape. Boating down the Metauro River 4. FARMING EXPERIENCE a) HOLIDAY FARM 1~2 Day visit to farm and cook local fruits and crops with farmers
Map of Objectives 2.5 Km exploration along the Metauro river
Diagrams Natural and Urban experiences sites
Workgroup2 URBANIA // METAURO RIVER REGION INTEGRATED TO THE NEW GREEN NETWORK MEMBERS: Takashi Ariga / Waseda University,Tokyo Riccardo Feligiotti / Università di Ferrara Francesca Corà / PolIMi Dai Nomura / Waseda University Wen Jun Xu / Scut, Guangzhou
view from the main street
Village of Peglio
Villa del Barco Ponte dei Cocci
Ducal Palace on the Metauro
1. Hill for families: “Collina Berticchio” and “Collina Monticello”. Proposal: daily use of the hill. 2. Hill for Education: “Collina di Chelgallo”. Proposal: high quality cultivation and agritourism. 3. Hill for outlooking: “Ca’ Belvedere”. Proposal: landscape of the forest to be preserved. 4. Hill for exploration: Collina di “Sant’ Apolinare. Proposal: half hidden path. 5. Hill for sport activities: “Sant’Alessandro”. Proposal: nature trail per bicycle end tracking”. diagrams 1. river and roads 2. green areas 3. strategy: connecting the hills with the river through the city
The main problem coming out from the reading of the present situation in Urbania is the lack, or the loss in time, of relationship between the town and the river, and between the lower part along the stream of the river and the upper part of the hills surrounding the landscape. It seems that the town has turned the back on the river, creating a strong separation between urban and natural environment. So the design proposal is focusing on the reconnection of these two systems. The first action of the strategy is based on improving the top down radial connections between the hills and the valley, finding a specific value and vocation for each of the hill surrounding Urbania and keeping them strongly linked. Five new green urban connections have been identified:
strategy_ step 1 visual and functional town / hill reconnection
The second intervetion of the strategy is based on enhancing the relationship between the river and the town along the valley. The need to improve the quality of the water by the use of a non-invasive phytodepuration system gives an opportunity both to find new social uses for many neglected urban spaces, and to activate a partecipatory process. The river is not easy to access nor use and the quality of the water should be taken into serious consideration for the future. Following from this, we suggest hydroponic filtration/ purification to better the water system. The process will take advantage of the sparsely or totally unused, combining terrain morphology and sewage treatment tanks, allowing for possible people usage of the natural environment and participation in the water purification process. The purification process will not only have a functional implication, but even more importantly will have an awareness of environmental and landscape value by the community. By way of illustration , urban design, such as water purification processes need some pools of water, fountains, microbial pools, ponds and hydrophyte filter bed (HFB) to allow aquatic plants to grow; this will bring a positive influence on Urbania’s environmental system. Starting from these assumptions a new pedestrian path is to be developed along the river to connect Barco to the historic city centre – especially with the Ducal Palace , “Ponte dei Cocci” and the urban allotment near the river.
Section relationship between Barco Ducale Palace and the Metauro River
visu environmental education and wa
ual sketches ater landscape
Section the connection between the river and the main square
ILA&UD Laboratory / 16 - 28th July Urbino / Data-Orto dell’Abbondanza
The 2012 ILAUD seminar // July 25th - Data, Orto dell’Abbondanza NEW TERRITORIAL CHALLENGES
Strategic Planning for Local Development A partecipatory process for the Costa Do Corais, Brasil Gianfranco Franz, Camilla Sabatini. UniversitĂ di Ferrara
Great Events and Innovation in Urban Policies The Case of Milan Expo 2015 Corinna Morandi. POLIMI
The Rural Villages in Suzhou Limits of the Modernization in the Chinese Countryside Giulio Verdini. Xi’An Jiaotong-Liverpool University
About Machizukury DImensions of Participation for the Post-Disaster Town planning in Japan Takashi Ariga, Waseda Univerisity Tokyo
The Oasis of Jericho Etra Connie Occhialini. ILAUD
Shunde Competition Different Approaches to the Future of a Large Chinese City Hao Hao Xu. SCUT, Guangzhou
DA SOSTITUIRE CON FOTO RICHARD >> Planning for Innovative Development in the USA Antonio Di Mambro. FAIA
Local Planning in Palestine The Heritage and the Reforms Azzam Alhjouj. Urban Planning Department Palestine
The discourse of modernization in China has been normally related to the great economic transformation that the country has undergone in the last decades. This discours e had a direct implication in the way of conceiving the cultural heritage and the historic urban fabrics thus legitimating urban conservation policies or, on the contrary, the demolishment of old and dilapidated artifacts. The two have been alternatively applied either to enhance the visibility of the cities for the needs of global competiveness, or to upgrade obsolete urban fabrics driven by a more profitable urban regeneration (redevelopment) strategy. Less attention has been paid by scholars to the countryside and to peri-urban areas, although a relatively recent policy, called “Building a new countryside� (2006), has
The Rural Villages in Suzhou Limits of the Modernization of the Chinese Countryside Giulio Verdini, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University
clearly addressed the issue of modernization for this specific non-urban areas. This policy aims at improving the livelihood of rural areas, upgrading the existing rural villages. The paper will argue that the current policy framework for heritage conservation fails to acknowledge the value (both cultural and economic) of a different range of minor settlements, namely the rural villages, basic in their spatial articulation and characterized by vernacular architecture. It will be eventually presented the case of the Suzhou fringe pointing out the limits of the modernization of the countryside especially for dense regions, like the South Jiangsu Province, where a traditional social agrarian structure very often coexist with the new urban developments. In these transitional areas the system of rural villages could still play an important role in the functioning of the urban region.
Conservation policy in China and the modernization Heritage protection policy in China has emerged with the spreading of Western influences into the Chinese culture. It can be dated back to the early twenty century developing, with alternate fortune, all over the last century. Temporarily interrupted during the “cultural revolution”, where massive demolishment took place under the imperatives of Maoism, the awareness of conservation reawakened by the early 1980s gradually assuming the form of a more comprehensive urban conservation policy. In less than three decades it changed from being focused on “individual historical buildings and site to a concern with regions and cities”, thus introducing the concept of “historico-cultural conservation area” in 1986, reinforced by the promulgation of the “Guidelines for preparing conservation plans for precious historic cities and towns” in 1994 (Whitehand and Gu, 2007). Time matters and a parallel with the history of conservation in the West would reveal a huge chronological discrepancy concerning the same issue: almost four centuries from the identification of single outstanding monuments to the first experiments of Giovannoni in Italy for preserving the city as a whole (Choay, 1992). Moreover it’s not worth here to enter the debate as to whether the eastern way of perceiving the idea of conservation can be assimilated to the same one raised in the West, being the former much more anchored to the idea of “intangibility” or rather then physical conservation (Jokilehto, 2009). However it’s clear that currently heritage is seen everywhere as a tool to feature the city in the global scenario thus enhancing the city competitiveness. In China this has generated, in some cases, a new conservationist attitude among local officials, although there is still a general agreement that it’s still probably purely a matter of tourism promotion rather than a shared sense of place (Friedmann, 2007). The urban conservation in China, although controversial, is in place, and will be likely to follow the same pattern of the West, facing problems that, some decades ago, the “protected” European cities had to face, in terms of private speculation, tourism overspecialization, etc. (Ceccarelli and Indovina, 1974).
Yet the point of this paper is to consider how much the discourse of modernization is today affecting the existing urban fabrics not designated among the heritage but, possibly, worthy of being preserved. If we look at the urban regeneration policy that has been developed after the opening policy of China it becomes apparent that obsolete urban fabrics have been largely demolished (or are under demolishment today). China’s urban landscape was in a dilapidated condition with the problem of instable dwelling structure and serious degradation and, starting from the 1990s, urban redevelopment has turned the deteriorated inner-city area into more profitable high-profile development, like commercial areas, offices and upscale residential areas (He and Wu, 2005).
A parallel between the inner city historic areas and the rural villages can be drawn. Similarly then in some dilapidated urban areas, the rural heritage often suffers for low visibility, obsolescence and poor construction techniques and, especially when located at the fringe of the cities, high risk of demolishment to let the space to new developments. Attempts to preserve the rural heritage in the West is relative recent, and even more so in China. Normally they have been developed within the practice of rural landscape planning. The particular organic nature of the rural villages in fact suggests conceiving the rural heritage as an important component of a cultural landscape, as in the pioneer experience of the Design Manual for the Connecticut River Valley (Yaro et al., 1990).
The dominant and “functional” governmental attitude of upgrading the existing fabrics has been reinforced by new strong market pressure. It might derive from issues of national urgency, like the notorious demolishment of the hutong area in Beijing for the Olympic games, but mostly from less ambitious speculative motivations. Normally the interest of public and private merges together forming a dangerous coalition for growth (Zhu, 1999). The effect can be depicted as the “throwing the baby out with the bath water”. Surely in fact some areas were in need of rapid actions, especially for the overall sanitary condition but, in some cases, they could have retained certain elements of the past, like the morphological structure, the height and the distance between elements, eventually the sense of place, if not the buildings. So far this has happened just for luxury regeneration projects like Xintiandi in the centre of Shanghai and few other examples.
In the last years the rural-agricultural landscape has been more and more perceived as a valuable cultural landscape worthy of conservation for its heritage and aesthetic visual values, especially in fastgrowing metropolitan areas where the urban sprawl has seriously threatened the farmland and the existing rural settlements (Yahner et al., 1995; Maruani and Amit-Cohen, 2007). Further international studies around the conceptual challenges of preserving a cultural landscape have been developed within the UNESCO (2003). In China the approach seems still confined to the acknowledgment of the scattered and more visible rural architectures lacking in a more integrated regional perspective, moreover “landscape” in planning is still normally associated to the regional ecological functioning or to the urban green system. In fast growing areas like the South Yangtze River Delta this means to not acknowledge the value of several minor rural settlements fostering indirectly the irreversible alteration of a valuable and secular rural landscape. The issue of the “modernization” of the Chinese countryside has been clearly addressed by a policy released in 2006, called “building a new countryside”, (Guidelines of PRC’s 11th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development) aimed at improving the livelihood of rural areas and to create “clean and tidy villages” and a “civilized social atmosphere”. This policy addressed for the first time the negative effects of the spontaneous development happened outside the urban areas and advocating for a more systematic implementation of planning instruments (Long et al., 2010). The policy refers to the chaotic development that often characterised the rural areas due to the lack of any planning instruments or building codes.
Diagrams The rate of urbanization in Jiangsu Province. Source: Zhong et al. (2010).
The political discourse of modernization has actually legitimated the application of several relocation schemes for rural settlements, in some cases, with a recognizable historic value, as it will be shown later. The case of Suzhou in the South Jiangsu Province will be use to show recent trends of transformation of some villages in the west part of the city, along the famous Tai lake. The paper will present the risks lying behind a generalised application of the policy.
The historic fringe of Suzhou The fringe of the Chinese cities today is a
Map from the satellite Urbanization around Suzhou and water system
Scheme: the forced abandonment of the system of villages The Urban growth and the Application of several Relocation 2001 > 2008 People living in the Urban Districts (urban areas + rural areas) From 2.094.600 to 2.382.100
+ 13,7% Non agricultural population In urban districts from 1.170.000 to 1.580.600
+ 35% rural to urban land conversion
– 70% (from 730 to 213) The entire loss of Rural Villages in Suzhou from 2001 to 2010
transitional area between the city and the surrounding countryside, which is not easy to define. The reason is mainly ascribable to the scattered industrialization model that has shaped certain regions of the coast since the 1980s together with a more recent suburbanization process typical of the growing cities of the emerging countries like China (Friedmann, 2005; Hsing, 2010). The South Yangtze River Delta has a population density typical of an urban area where a traditional agrarian economy and a traditional social structure coexist with all the modern urban activities. These high-density regions of the South East Asia, where the urban spatial organization is embedded in the rural, has been addressed as “ruralopolis” (Qadeer, 2000). This particular spatial organization is the outcome of massive urbanization of a very dense countryside, relying on large-scale planned resettlements of farmers previously involved in agricultural activities. This is the case of the axis Shanghai- Suzhou-Wuxi. But it’s also sometimes the result of the chaotic merging of previous settlements with new forms of scattered urban and rural development. Adopting the lens suggested by Gallent et al. (2006) the “historic fringe” of Suzhou means a system of settlements normally grown along the main network of canals, in most cases characterized by ordinary housing in relatively bad state of maintenance but also, occasionally, by outstanding architecture or historic rural fabrics. As a result of urbanization and industrialization, an unprecedented amount of rural area has been turned into urban land in China and the South Jiangsu Province has a more explicit trend of disappearance in rural land compared with other regions in China. From 2000 to 2006, around 70 thousand ha of paddy fields were lost in southern Jiangsu with a speed twice higher than national average. In the meantime, the annual rate for arable land loss is 11.694 ha (Liu et al., 2010). Suzhou has experienced a rapid process of urbanization, in which arable land greatly reduced from 305.971 hm2 to 231.061 hm2 (-24.5%) from 1998 to 2008 (Qiao et al., 2012). The non-agricultural population, which substantially increased from 1.170.600 to 1.580.600 (+35%). Although this kind of land-consuming development mode has stimulated economic prosperity the growth has been realized at the expense of rural land, in particular, high productive arable land. In terms of built environment the statistic reveals that the total loss of rural villages reached 70% within last decade (2000 – 2010). The loss has been mainly concentrated in the southern and eastern area of Suzhou. In the west, nearby Tai Lake, an area has been instead designated as a tourism development area, partially protected by a green buffer zone, according to the Master Plan amended in 2007.The existence of a buffer zone however, does not imply that today these villages, in western Suzhou, are away from urbanization’s effects. On the contrary, most of them are still under great threat for the proximity to the urban areas. We refer to the abandonment of agricultural activities, mostly rented out to new migrants, and the changing of the major source of income now deriving from the urban factories. Moreover, like in the case study of Jinshi Village some relocation scheme has been applied in the last ten years and part of the population relocated (Verdini, 2012).
Lured by relatively higher income of outside employment opportunities, plenty of young labour force left the rural villages seeking for better income and better living condition. As a consequence these villages normally experiences a serious ageing problem. In the meanwhile the decay of the housing stock starts to appear. To examine these assumptions, five villages in the western Suzhou has been chosen. These villages are all under the administration of Tongan town. Shushan and Tongan are located in the eastern part of Tongan town nearby the Suzhou National District, where most of the industrial areas are located. The other three villages are Jinshi, Jiandu and Pengshan, with a large proportion of cultivated land, more distant from city and close to Tai Lake. According to the data provided there is a remarkable growth in terms of population and household amount during 1980s to 2000s in the periurban areas, possibly influenced by the industrial development. Taking Shushan Village as an example, the population in the 1990s raised about 42.4%, while its household amount also increased around 72%. Conversely the household size decreased later, due to the combination of ageing and improved living standard, together with the dangerous effect of the one-child policy. The population of the western villages, namely Pangshan, Jiandu and Jinshi Villages, declined during the 1990s. Although Penshan Village once showed a comparably strong increase from 1964 to 1982, the obvious growth stopped in 1980s and remained stable. During 1990s, the village experienced the decline of population of -15%. Jinshi Village has a similar demographic fluctuation, with a stable population during the 1980s, staring to decrease from the 1990s. From 1990 to 2000, dweller number in Jiandu Village dramatically declined from 1507 to 1179 (-21.8%), and the household number reduced accordingly. Generally speaking, it can be inferred that there is a great expulsion of population from the western rural villages to peri-urban and urban areas. Along with the ageing problem, villagers no longer pursue the agricultural activities as their major source of income. As a result, these villages are losing their social capital such their original rural image.
Maps from the satellite Suzhou agricultural fringes in 2002 Suzhou urbanized fringes in 2010
Jinshi Village: results of a fieldwork Jinshi Village developed historically along a river and, before the industrialization of the area, the peasants relied on farming and fishing and a complex water network was their main transportation mode. The land use pattern in Jinshi Village has changed slightly. For example the commercial activities gradually moved from the old streets to the new commercial area in the southern part of the Jinshi Village. The centre of the village today features a continuous row of shop-houses and traditional old residential buildings from the 19th century. Not having undergone sweeping redevelopment, the village retains many of its original typo-morphological features as well as its townscape character. These elements could still remind residents and visitors of the root and origin of this area. Jinshi village, whose covering area is around 3.1 square km, decreases its population in the 80s by 1.1% and the 90s by 11.5%. The estimated population in 2010 was 1.706 with 484 households (less 10.2%). Among them around 35 houses are located in the historical highstreet area, one third of which are unoccupied and only one of which retains its original commercial use. Regardless of whether they are occupied or not, most of the houses are in a state of dilapidation, and some are practically uninhabitable (Wang and Verdini, 2012).
What is worth to be mentioned is that villages gain their income in a variety of forms other than barely agricultural activity. The relatively new commercial area is where most of the non-agricultural activities take place, including food markets, restaurants and the retailing shop run by villagers. On top of that, home-based handicraft industry is one of the prevailing economic activities that most families participate in. Retired and unemployed women in Jinshi village rely on the local embroidery to support their family. Besides, small businesses, such as retailing, hardware processing, and recycling, are also important activitius for local dwellers. The rural landscape is till characterised by orchards, allotments, paddy fields and fishing activities. However, based on the questionnaires and interviews that were conducted in Jinshi village in a weekday afternoon, it has been estimated that over 70% of young population works outside the village. As a result of migration of younger generation, the aged in the village are unable to carry on the work in the field. Though there are a number of fishermen still living on fishery, according to some interviewees’ response, all the wide and flat cultivated land in Jinshi village has been contracted to outsiders.
Diagrams Transformation in land use during last two decades in Jinshi Village. The land use pattern in 1990 and the current land use
Nevertheless, owing to the dissatisfaction for removal compensation and unfair treatment to rural farmers, a large number of local farmers objected to government decision, which ultimately resulted in a confrontation between riot polices and villagers.
Satellite map Top view of the canal of Jinshi village.
In spite of small amount of rent, this area no longer lives on its original source of income as a rural village. In Jinshi village, some buildings on the old street have kept their original appearance, while other buildings have been either newly rebuilt or refurbished, using the widespread technique of re-cladding. However, lacking of renovation and repair renders these old house rather shabby and dangerous, some of which even are incapable to accommodate people any more. Additionally there is a lack of indoor facilities and all the households are not equipped with a complete sanitary system. Few families can utilise flash toilet. Based on the survey almost 35% of households are equipped with air conditioners, but due to the high ceiling and air infiltration of houses in Jinshi village, air conditioner does not work very effectively. A great percentage of villagers still have to bare the heat in summer. In 2010, there was a tension between local people and local government due to a proposed relocation scheme for Jinshi and its surrounding villages, in order to construct highway and develop industry around this area.
General assumptions and conclusion The case of Jinshi village appeared immediately interesting since we first visited in the summer of 2011 for a simple reason: the presence of an unknown (not listed) but fascinating historic rural fabric along a canal, just beyond the urban area of the modern Suzhou, nearby Tai Lake, and the perception of witnessing something temporary and irreversibly declining. The papers clumsy glued to the doors of some houses revealed the intention of moving out the remaining few population. Later we got to know a long history of relocation schemes some of them successfully applied, some of them, strongly contested by the locals. The overall cost of the urbanization of contemporary China, in addition to the consolidated mainstream arguments related to the environmental issue of the massive sprawl and the unfair treatment for displaced farmers, indeed includes the loss of a memory of the past. This is embodied in the scattered presence of minor but valuable rural housing. Moreover the demolition might imply the loss of “path dependent” activities, expression of the local social capital hardly replicable elsewhere, like in the case of home-based embroidery in the fringe of Suzhou. Besides the built environment, and despite its quality, the intangible side of this cultural capital can be also regarded as a potential loss. Some villages in peri-urban areas are functionally integrated in the urban areas economic activities, keeping a relatively high level of economic independency and a rural life-style. The traditional morphology of the villages are a suitable environment for living and often (with limited intervention) relatively better than the urban accommodations. The relocation scheme today in Suzhou appears the “extrema ratio” of the process of countryside modernization; is it possible to consider that Suzhou has reached his limit to growth? Is it possible to argue that the rural fringe and the “creation of a higher rural quality of life”, can play today, even in emerging countries, a role in reducing the pressure on inner city locations? Several issues to be work on could be: mobility and infrastructures; the future of local agriculture; the rethinking of welfare for marginal areas; community development (ageing); employment; tourism development; heritage conservation. The main discourse of the modernization of the countryside addresses surely some of the limitations of an uncontrolled rural development, happened in the last decades, but fails to acknowledge the diversities of the rural areas. Moreover the lack of an integrated rural landscape planning prevents to consider this housing stock as part of a cultural landscape worthy of conservation. The conservationist attitude of the West warns us in not encouraging extreme approaches in that direction, but the experiences of active conservation of valuable cultural landscapes like in Tuscany in Italy, in the Connecticut River Valley in the US or in Provence in France, suggest exploring other paths of development.
The lesson that can be learnt from the international experiences in fact is that, besides the cultural value, these villages can support directly or indirectly alternative uses more related to the contemporary way of conceiving the countryside around the main cities: from the more traditional rural tourism to activities for leisure time or as a suitable environment for developing local food strategies. Less ambitiously, and with little upgrading effort, these villages could simply provide a suitable living environment for those social formations that would end up to be marginalized once relocated in the city.
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Shunde Competition A different Approach to the Future of a Large Chinese City Hao Hao Xu, School of Architecture, South China University of Technology - SCUT
The paper talks about a conceptual research on a fast growing Chinese city. It reviews the international competition for the new urban area in Shunde, and compares the different approaches to look at the future development of a post-industrial city. To compare them with a study on the current local urban issues, and to find out the philosophies behind the morphologies, is the main purpose of the paper. Keywords Post-industrial city, modernity, locality
About Shunde Located in the South of Guangzhou, the capital city of Guangdong Province, Shunde is closer to the southern portion of the Pearl River Delta, especially Hong Kong, which gives it a dominant position as a place of origin for industrial goods bound for the international harbor. In common with other Pearl River cities, Shunde shares the same geological evolution of the Delta. For 20000 years, upper river floods eroded the land and brought abundant silt and sand to the down river basin. In the meantime, levee construction and cultivation activities happened along the lower river distributaries. The joint forces of sedimentation and levees, blocked up the watery coast like two hands, resulting in a step by step filling of the entire delta area. The unique geography gives places like Shunde a very special character. The origin of the city emerged out of a collection of villages surrounded by rivers and streams. There, the water system and the water bound transportation were parts of the daily life. Each village was a domain of one extended family that allowed the clan to control all aspects of social management. People were working from dawn to dust. A life style frequently depicted as romantic and blissfully rural in literature and the visual arts. If we take a look at the ancient maps drawn by our ancestors, we will find a very interesting way of presenting the sense of territory at that time. The most important element in an old map (Fig.1) (in Chinese it is called Shanshui Xingsheng Tu 山水形胜图, which means “a magnificent view of the mountains and rivers”) is the environment that surrounds the human settlement. Mountains, rivers, streams, forests always occupied most parts of the picture. Even when we move closer to the settlement itself, we still can find that things we call infrastructures, like roads and pass-ways that are commonly absent, but dominate modern maps. Our ancestors were more concern about the boundary between the artificial area and the natural environment. The only infrastructure we can easily find in the maps are the bridges that have a strong relationship with the water ways. But landmarks, like pagodas on the top of the hills, provided much needed guidance for visual orientation, both for navigation and for those moving on land.
Peculiar features of Shunde The unique character of water villages had been kept until the beginning of the 1980s. At that time the industrial reform movement as a consequence of the “opening-up” policy started to bring about major changes. The central government selected the Pearl River Delta as an experiment to pioneer industrialization near the available shipping routes. Industrialization and associated urbanization completely changed the Delta and the villages that made-up the district of Shunde. Available water transportation provided the foundation for the initial well during industrialization. But soon it was replaced by the more efficient road system. The nr. 105 national road played a key role in connecting the emerging cities. Important roadway interchanges became the entrances of new industrial expansions. Crossings, located in a predictable rhythm, shaped the urban area in a pattern similar to a string of pearls along the national road. The trend to transform the region from waterbased transportation to land based modes became more evident when a new light rail system was inaugurated in date. The industrialization encouraged a boom in local enterprises. The entrepreneurs as successors of village patriarchs took charge of the social management. No longer living like the ancestors a peaceful and calm life, modern day efficiency dictated a hard working melody of the life. After thirty years of industrial development, Shunde has become one of the most important global manufactory bases. With rapid urban expansion, the former villages of Shunde transformed into a continuously urbanized metropolitan area. In the coming decades, the city will be like another Guangzhou. The transformation poses big and urgent questions for people and for government of Shunde. Let’s start addressing another question that was important for us to answer in the context of the 2012 design competition: why is Shunde Shunde? Is there anything about the locality of Shunde that we can maintain as a future scenario for a unique Shunde? We discovered several issues[elements characteristic of Shunde’s that helped us to understand the approapriate strategy for Shunde’s future. The origin of the open policy and the administrative independence. The original experimental area for the open policy is not like the general consideration that was lunched and happened first in Shenzhen. But instead it was in Shunde. Somehow the history of a continuous experimental area gave the advantage to Shunde to practice even more aggressive trial today. In the first quarter of 2012, Shunde became the first experimental Sheng Xia Qu (省辖区)1 in China, which allows it to have a much more flexible management on economy, industry and social organization. A high advanced manufacturing basement with strong traditional customs. Thanks to the priority of the position2 and the spirit of business, Shunde creates a lot of economic miracles, especially in the manufactory industry. Media, Glanz, Xiongfeng, Bigui Yuan, all of these brands take an incredible dominant occupation in the global market. The transportation chain is replied on the highly advanced road system heads to south harbors.
Map from the satellite The region of the Pearl river Delta
But at the same time, there are still places in Shunde keeping their special characters. The banyan trees stand at the gate of the village, the bridges and the small public squares under the shadow, the ancestral halls, are all telling us the story of a watery village, a picture of the agricultural and pre-industrial era. People are still used to show their respect to the ancestors in the festivals, hold public gathering for worship, wedding, birth and funeral. A strong society, simplified government If we try to find a description for the modernity and locality in Shunde, we may say it is a strong society with a simplified government. It is also the most important slogan of the district government.
1. Sheng Xia Qu is an administrative term in the Chinese system to define a district directly under the jurisdiction of a provincial government. It differs from another more common term Shi Xia Qu, which means a district directly under the jurisdiction of a municipal government. Shunde is the first Sheng Xia Qu in China. It means after 30 years of the Open Policy, Shunde again becomes the pioneer of the administrative reform. 2. Shunde is 32 kilometers south to Guangzhou, 90 kilometers north to Macau, 150 kilometers east to Shenzhen. From the Shunde harbor, there are only 64 nautical miles about 45 minutes by ferry. Except the former No. 105 national road, there are 3 express way and one urban rapid light railway link to the PRD express traffic system, which gives Shunde a position of very important traffic hub in the delta.
Problems and issues to be addressed by the competition In order to gather more ideas and find more physical ways for the future in Shunde, in the last months of 2011, the local government of Shunde proposed to have an international competition for the re-development of the Desheng New Town in Shunde, as well as the development of several selected areas in both side of the Shunde River. The period of the competition is about 4 months with a research area up to 45 kilometers square, and several specific areas for urban design of about 4 kilometers square. The government also left the possibility for each group to select freely the other areas which may have interests and potentials within the research scope. After the competition, the results and the proposals of the four participants are open to public. It is easy to recognize that for all the groups, no matter the difference between their approaches and beliefs, the first question they asked, and for all of them they all asked, is how to establish the urban centre identity and the Shunde identity, the urban characteristic and significance by the city events, contents and morphology. There are several urgent problems in Shunde immediately appearing on the desk. First, how can we solve the conflict between the condensed old downtown and the flat but disorganized new town? The downtown area of Daliang has a history over 1000 years. The first administrative town started from 1452. After so many years of historic sedimentation, it becomes a highdensity area of constructions and populations, over 10.000 people per kilometer square. In the other side of the streams and hills, the New Town area is rather flat facing future development but in the same time with many disorganized constructions free-standing on the beautiful watery lands. Many of them are real estate development projects. Aerial views Urbanization and fish ponds along the river
Second, why do natural elements in Shunde become a barrier between the old and new town? In the ancient time Shunfeng Hill was always considered as the boundary of the Daliang old town. It was a natural separation to protect the inner lands. Today, because of the urban expansion, Shunfeng Hill no longer stands at the boundary of the city but turns into the middle of it. There are two main rivers flowing from north to south, which shape the junction between the old town and the new town tightening. The hill locates exactly on that point. For people who live in the old town, the hill is both a physical and psychological block to the New Town. Although there are very nice resorts and parks inside it, fast road cutting the hill and connecting to the south, still people are not so convinced to take the New Town as part of the real Shunde. Third but not last, is the absent sense of locality. The quality of the constructions is above average. But the design is a typical “western style� that has nothing to do with the character of Shunde. For most of the people it is not attracted enough. Those free standing buildings are paralleled with the ponds and farmlands, simultaneously create a collaged contemporary developing city. From a government point of view, there is a more sever problem they are eager to solve. Since 10 years ago, the district government tried any kinds of method, offering special policies for purchasing houses, cutting tax for setting up new business, even moving the district administrative center for the stimulation of the surrounding development, to encourage people immigrate to the New Town. With their efforts, until now the population of this area is over one million. It seems it has been a crowded and active place. But if you take a look at the real situation, you only see beautiful but empty boulevards, huge but empty squares, great but empty public facilities. Why does it happen? Where are the 1.000.000 inhabitants in the New Town?
The different approaches to maintain and remind local uniqueness For the future of Shunde, it is very essential to pay attention to the balance between the modernity and the locality. There are two primary questions. One is where Shunde is, another is what Shunde is. After thousand years of development, the old downtown, the new residential area, the new administrative center and the industrial area are all considered as parts of Shunde. But which one, or what particularly reminds in Shunde that is a real Shunde? The sense of landscape, the dike-pond system, the river, the twin islands and the society are all key elements for the future planning and designing. The paper will take the dike-pond system and the twin islands as examples to explain the different approaches of the participants.
建成形态 Morphology
主导交通 Transportation
社会治理 Management
生活形态 Life style
The dike-pond system is the key agricultural system used since 2.000 years ago, very unique in the PRD area especially in Shunde. It is composed by mulberry dike and fish pond, organized as an artificial and natural recycling circulation. The mulberry tree on the dike feeds the silk warm. After producing silk, the dung of the warm becomes a good fertilizer for the water grass that turns to the food of the fish in the pond. Again the dung of the fish makes the land of the dike very rich for the growing of the mulberry trees. The local people created such a high efficient economic crops planting and pursued a high yield of production. The unique agriculture shaped the whole area with a very special morphology, covered by dikes and ponds with human settlements besides. In the New Town, due to the free-standing constructions, many dike-pond lands are kept in very comprehensive shapes, allow all the groups to have an imagination for the future of the land.
One possible strategical approach to the area of the competition The SCUT group, combined with historians and urban designers, suggested an unusual but interesting idea. After a serious and comprehensive historic study, they believed in Shunde the respects from the human beings to the natural environment is more like a rooted custom inside the spiritual of local people. The way ancient people managed their life and work were more related to the nature than nowadays. To remind the important character of the city, the group proposed to take the advantage of the barrier-looked hills and streams, in a modern sense, and to create a green heart in the middle of the city.
Map from the satellite Shunde, the area of the design competition
Map from the satellite Urbanization around Suzhou and water
There are three levels of the green heart. - The hills and streams. They are used as the central park in NewYork but even stronger in a sense of heart. The location is between the old downtown and the New Town, exactly in the middle of the urban area. The concept of heart will help to reduce the feeling of a block since long time. Consider Shunde now is almost a continuous metropolitan without much concentrated green land, the area, more than 5 kilometer square, will be an exceptional given resources of Shunde than any other Chinese cities. - The round slow system of social services. The green heart is an area surrounded by a round slow transit system like pedestrian, cycling, new energy vehicles and so on. There are technical ways to create an un-blocked path to connect high lands and lower parts. - The city events. In some important and convenient positions of the round system, there could be ideal places for big city events, like sport center (which has already been there as an open public fields but without many attractions), aqua-activity center, citizen service center, etc. In this sense, the green heart will not be a core only for the green land. Unlike the common CBD or other physical center of a big metropolitan, the green heart is a soft platform to hold most of the future public activities. It will be an attractive place for the people to enjoy it. Above the green heart, the group also suggested a gentle but still strong way for the development and re-development of the other parts of the city. It is named Urban Acupuncture. The way of doing it is based on a historic and urban study, to pick up those forgotten, important and potential areas, to execute careful architectural and urban constructions, to stimulate the surrounding areas to grow with them. The group picked 9 points, called them 9 windows of Shunde. They were put into three category, traffic harbor, pre-industrial factory and heritage.
system
Map from the satellite Shunde, the area of the design competition
Map from the satellite Shunde, the area of the design competition
The features of the traditional dike-pond settlement reinterpreted for the design of the new spatial layout The SCUT group, again, since the com-
Concept diagram Dike-pond as a new water courtyard
posers are more historians, did a careful study of the historic elements related to the dike-pond system and tried to use a modern way to interpret them. - Enclosure. First of all, the dike-pond system is about the way of enclosure. The artificial parts surround the nature to give the shape of the landscape. To present the same meaning, the SCUT group designed a modern “dike-pond� to enclosure the natural elements with new construction. Within it, no longer a common public space but a water pond exists. - Comb. The comb-shape layout is very popular in South China. It helps the high dense village with a natural ventilation system and a man-made micro-climate to change the severe heat in the extreme weather. As a modern representative of the unique layout in Shunde, the framework of the new residential area is controlled as low level and high density. The gaps between the three or four storied building leave a wind path to cool the whole area. - Corridor. The corridor is not really a long historic element in Shunde but more influenced by the modern arched building built in the 1920s. The corridors are put in the main axis, creating a easy connection for walking people. It becomes a shade to protect people beneath it against rain and sunshine, it also offers a double layer of commercial opportunities.
semi-transparent building, to minimize the column of the structure. It is named as Shunde Guild Hall by metaphor, which is a similar name as the ancestor hall, reminding the history of the glorious clans and the booming time of the guilds and enterprises. From the axis, the island is covered by existing green with a light building in the mid. Water wave reflects on the glazing wall, creating an illusory flowing image. It also takes the under-planned metro line account. The pagoda like tower will be a landmark to respect the old tradition of guiding the boats from the ocean and offer a function as a traffic hub for transfering from public transportation to pedestrian. Consider the strong tradition of the dragon boat festival in Shunde, there are grandstands on both sides of the river, to link the axis of the New Town with a custom. It is a rather gentle but spiritual aggressive way of bridging the old and the new. The public facilities including two docks are put in rhythm along the banks to give the boat competition lane distance marks.
SCUT Masterplan for Shunfeng island Water coutyard and Guild Hall building
As a transitional joint, the island, which is called Shunfeng Island by local people at the extended axis, is one of the most potential developing areas from the government point of view. Geographically it divides the New Town and the industrial area in Ronggui, but psychologically it is the jumper from the North riverside to the South riverside. What kind of function will it have in the future? What kind of strategy will we foreseen to keep the good environment on it? Is there any possibility for construction, either light or massive, on it? How to deal with the relationship between the Shunfeng Island and the neighbor Dashan Island that almost reminds completely a dike-pond island? Is that necessary to create the physical connection through the island or not? The SCUT group practiced their concept of enclosure on the island. A square is put to hold public functions like gathering, museum, exhibition, etc., and spiritual meanings. A water courtyard is surrounded by the
Conclusion Most of the participants of the competition gave a convinced document to experiment the concept for a large Chinese post-industrial city. The result is quite positive because after the competition, the local government started to think seriously about some potential development areas and some feasibility researches. They also organized a citizen involvement selection from the website to collect the public suggestions. It may be the first time in China that a plan of a large urban district involves a large scale of public participation.
Shetches and 3d simulation The design proposal by OMA, based on two possible “combination strategies� (above). The 300 meter high skyscraper on the opposite side of the river (below)
Scenario for Shunde, SCUT group New intervention in the old landscape map
At last, since the SCUT group eventually won the highest votes from the juries, I want to quote one key point of their master plan to show again the basic philosophy of the intellectuals’ efforts for Shunde. We hope, and we believe, that in the future people in Shunde will remind their strong tradition of the harmony between the natural environment and themselvess. Through doing that, and only through that, will make the real life of Shunde full with happiness.