ITS GROWTH ITS DECAY ITS FUTURE The evolution of residential forms in China
Fay Huang Girton College University of Cambridge Essay 2: Pilot Thesis An essay submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the MPhil Examination in Architecture & Urban Design (2015-2017) Word Count: 4886 19th April, 2016
CONTENTS
Introductiom
Old City of Shanghai 1. THE PAST
The Evolution of Residential Forms In China Shanghai - A Double Sided City The Debate On The Gated Community
2. THE PRESENT
The Urban Space Investigation
Hypothesis
3. THE FUTURE
Proposing A New Residential Typology
Conclusion Bibliography Image Sources Appendix
Essay2: Pilot Thesis for MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design
INTRODUCTION Having experienced a prompt urbanization process as a reintegration with the global market, the urban context in Shanghai shows a fragmentized feature. As the gated community is replacing the alleyway house in the old city of Shanghai, the way of living has been changing at the same time. The once abundant civic life has gradually faded away while the concrete towers become dominant in the city. In order to discuss the contemporary relationship between the residence and the urban environment as well as inside the residential compound in the city of Shanghai, this thesis will firstly take a look at the historical timeline of the urban development in China. There has been a long tradition of introvertive living patterns in the evolution of dwelling forms, from the courtyard house, the alleyway house, the work-unit compound to the modern gated community. Different from the newly-appeared living form in other countries, some scholars consider that the gated community has its traditional root in China (Bray, 2005). It seems that the contemporary development of the gated community shares certain spatial similarity with previous Chinese residential forms and has its position in the whole process of the dwelling evolution. However, concerning the social relationships inside the cluster, it can be regareded as a significant break with tradition. The previous models all provide a strong and tight interrelation among the residents, which is absent in the modern gated community. With respect to the external relation with the larger urban environment, the model of the gated community has also aroused heated discussions. Its exclusive characteristic represents a hostile attitude towards the "outside", which is often regarded as a negative influence on the vibrant street life in Shanghai. The newly issued regulation about openning up the residential compounds has also shown the government's attitude to the gated community.
Figure 1.
At last, a proposal of a new living typology in the old city of Shanghai will be provided. It aims at fulfilling the density requirement from the growing population while integrating with the historical context. It seeks to build a close-knit relationship among the residents as well as to reserve the rich urban life on the street level. The research will be conducted at two different scales, the morphology of the urban fabric and the organization of the living pattern, each suggesting the external relation of the living pattern with the city and the internal relation among the residents. The design process will act as an essential research tool and will help to analyze the political, social, cultural and spatial aspects of the topic.
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1. THE PAST
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1.1 OLD CITY OF SHANGHAI The old city of Shanghai (Lao Cheng Xiang), formerly known as the Chinese city during the colonial period, is the original root and traditional urban core of the city. In the history of recent 150 years, the city of shanghai has experienced two major developments, and has witnessed the transformation from a small fishing village to a global metropolis. At the same time, the appearance of the old city has been dramatically changed in the process of urbanization. The first leap for the city happened after the Opium war in 1842, when several foreign concessions were established in Shanghai. Being opened to the western traders, the city quickly became a busy port for commercial intercourse. Meanwhile, several changes happened in the old city of shanghai. Before becoming an open port, the city of shanghai was a typical traditional water town. The boundary of the city was defined by a defensive wall and a moat. The main urban elements of the city were the river network serving as the traffic system and the single-storey waterfront courtyard house. However, under the western influence and economic growth, the traditional city form could no longer fulfil the requirement of urban development. The river ways were filled and the water network was replaced by roads. The city wall was dismantled in 1912 as an obstacle between the Chinese city and foreign concessions and a broad circular avenue was built at the same place. At the same time, the urban population experienced a remarkable increase, as a result of which the traditional single-floor courtyard houses could not contain such number of people. A new residential typology, the alleyway house appeared as a mixture of the courtyard house and the western townhouse. Before the redevelopment in the 1990s, the alleyway house had become the dominant residential form in Shanghai, accounting for 80% of the overall housing (Bracken, 2013).
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Transformation of the old city of Shanghai
context
1840
1912
1995
2010
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1940
2010
The second remarkable time for Shanghai’s transformation is at the beginning of 1990s. Thanks to the reform and opening policies, Shanghai faced its second development opportunity to reconnect to the world. As stated before, the transformation process in Shanghai was extremely rapid. The huge change of the city’s appearance not only happened in the Pudong new area, but also in the old city. The urban population increased up to an unprecedented level, which required a far more high-density form of inhabitancy. As a consequence result of urban regeneration, local residents inside the old city experienced demolitions and relocation. Modern commercial housing, mainly in the form of gated communities, gradually replaced the low-rise alleyway houses. Until now, more than 30% of the old city has been dismantled and urbanized. After having witnessed major urban changes of Shanghai, the old city now demonstrates an interesting collage of different residential typologies. Due to the amazingly rapid transformation, the urban context shows a fragmentized texture. Modern skyscrapers with shining glass façade can be seen located just next to the neighbourhood of twostorey height alleyway houses, which present an extreme contrast of the vertical and the horizontal, the international and the local, the new and the old. More than just a difference of the looking, one residential typology also represents a different group of people and their lifestyle. The gated community mainly serves the new middle class, while the alleyway house represents the local Shanghai way of living.
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Historical Timeline
Collapse of Li-Fang System
Breakdown of City Wall
Courtyard House
1035
Openning Up Gated Communities
Alleyway House
1840
First Opium War
1912
Work-Unit Compound
1949
1978
Establishment of PRC
Open Policies
Gated Community
1993
2016
Development of Pu Dong New Area
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1.2 TRANSFORMATION OF THE URBAN COMPOUND IN CHINA In this part, in order to understand the social-spatial condition of the gated community in the contemporary urban environment, the history of dwelling evolution will firstly be discussed in two different scales. The relationship between the residence and the urban space will be focused, as it implies the social-political situation of society. Also, the internal social-spatial relations of the dwelling compound will be analysed to identify the living concept of the city inhabitants in different periods. In Chinese cities, the formation of urban and residential space is highly related to the political and social system. For instance, the highly controlled Li-Fang system presented the centralization of authority in the feudal society, while the work-unit compound reflected the central idea of communism, where people shared a collective life. During the feudal period, the spatial order in Chinese cities was topdown organized and the monarchical power had rigorous control of the urban space. Therefore, public space was clearly restricted and discouraged, which could be reflected in Li-Fang system. Public activities were strictly restricted inside walled compound at specific places (such as eastern market and western market in the plan of Chang’an). Figure 2.
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Inside the walled compound was the basic residential form, Chinese courtyard house. All the functions were organized around the inner courtyard with a hostile attitude towards the outer public streets. The spatial pattern of residence was in an enclosed form, with all the rooms facing a private courtyard, which acted as the centre of the residential unit, a shared place for the residents inside one family to interact and communicate. There was a rigid hierarchy among different rooms according to the location and orientation, which implied the social status of the person living in. After the collapse of Li-Fang system, various types of civic life started to thrive along the street in Song Dynasty, as it was the only possible space for urban activities. The Painting ‘Along the river during Qingming festival’ illustrated various urban public space inside the capital of Song dynasty, which was a great praise for the value of publicness for the first time in Chinese history. The walled residential compound and the busy street had become two main urban models, which were, however, still completely separated. The individual residence was still inside a walled compound, remaining the inner organization as the courtyard house, whereas the street, which was acting as the stage of civic life, filled with shops and businesses and activity, followed a more organic form (Bracken, 2013). Figure 3.
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After shanghai became an open port, with the influence of capitalism, the appearance of the alleyway house could be regarded as a westernized form of the courtyard house. It was a unique residential model in Shanghai, which reached an unprecedented degree of openness to the urban environment and also provided a great sense of community inside the cluster among residents with different backgrounds. It can be regarded as a good precedent for the contemporary development of residence. The brilliant move that the shanghai alleyway house developers unconsciously made was to integrate the enclosed compound with its surrounding streets, thereby erasing the borderline between the perceived order of the walled space and the more promiscuous street. This is unique to the city and has proved to be the alleyway house’s greatest strength (Bracken, 2013). As Ashihara states in the aesthetic township, the city should be a composition of continuous spatial orders from the community level to the private level (Ashihara, 1979). A typical alleyway house cluster is a perfect model reflecting that theory, which Ronald G. Knapp sees as ‘a hierarchy involving streets, lanes, sub lanes and individual long tang that provide a layering of public space, semipublic space, semiprivate space’ (Knapp, 2000). The urban space is gradually permeating through the living compound, also bringing informal commercial activities inside.
Figure 4. Figure 5.
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Besides, the social relationship inside the cluster was also changed. Due to the fast urban development, strangers from all over the country gathered in Shanghai, with totally different background, lived in the same compound. Surprisingly, the organization of the alleyway house seemed to encourage communities to become more close-knit regardless of occupations and social status (Bracken, 2013). The second-floor overlooking space made it possible that the alleyway house policed its streets and alleyways by the simple expedient of enabling neighbours to look out for one another. It was the healthy and mutually beneficial system of street surveillance (by neighbours, for neighbours concerned with one another’s welfare) that made the shanghai alleyway house such a wonderful generator of healthy vibrant social life (Bracken, 2013). The alleyway house compound’s hierarchical layout and flexible use of space showed what Ashihara called the internalization of exterior space (1979). Along the secondary alleyways people were playing mah-jong, having a daily conversation, repairing bicycles, cooking and washing dishes or tending miniature gardens. These activities could be regarded as an extension of interior activities and certainly aroused a strong sense of community. Figure 6.
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Courtyard House
Alleyway House
Work-Unit Compound
Gated Community
Social Organization
External Relation
Internal Relation
Family Unit
isolated
close
Strangers
integrated
close
Working - Living System
isolated
close
Strangers
isolated
no interaction
In the socialist era, the work-unit compound appeared around shanghai as a reflection of the political system. It was an important dwelling model of collective life-style in the evolution of residence in China. During that period of time, people had no choice but to be allocated to certain apartments by their workplace (Atkinson and Bland, 2013). Under this system of housing allocation, the members of same work unit lived in the same residential area apart from urban space, surrounded by walls and gates (Huang, 2005), which made the compound again an introverted enclosure. The relationship among the residents was close as the living space, the working space as well as public facilities such as clinics, kindergartens and groceries were all provided in the same compound as a self-contained unit (Bray, 2005).
What instead has become the present dominant form of residence in shanghai and overall China is the gated community, which represents the living pattern in a commercial-driven society. The spatial organization seems similar to the work-unit compound, but they are completely different in terms of the social relations among the residents. This typology emphasizes the importance of privacy and the power of capitals, which shows the tendency of privatization of the whole urban environment. It is a huge step backward in the development of Chinese cities regarding the degree of the social and spatial openness. It is regarded as one of the reasons why vibrant civic life has gradually disappeared in Shanghai and the city becomes a living machine full of indifferent towers.
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Courtyard House
Alleyway
House
Work-Unit Compound
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2. THE PRESENT
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2.1 SHANGHAI - A DOUBLE SIDED CITY "In a nutshell, shanghai is not sensual any more. New buildings construct a new cover for it, which separates the city from the physical senses of its inhabitants. Such a fancy cover, however, does not fit perfectly." – Wang Anyi, Song of Everlasting Sorrow Rome was not built in a day. This old saying can be proved by the formation of western megalopolises like New York, London or Paris, but it might lose its validity when it comes to Shanghai’s prompt urban growth in the last 15 years. The development project of Pudong New Area made it the new centre of Shanghai which mobilized more than 1 million construction workers for its construction in 1993 and attracted 9,580 million US dollars’ foreign direct investment in the next year (Huang, 2004). However, it is argued that the large-scale regeneration in the city may have a negative effect on the lived space of people's everyday life (Purcell, 2002). According to Huang, one distinctive feature of global city formation is that on the one hand the capitalistfriendly urban space often demands local inhabitants to adjust to new circumstances in the process of urban regeneration, while the new city might not be as accessible as they are promoted by the gorvernment (Huang, 2004). As Shanghai pursues the integration with the global market, the urban space tends to satisfy the needs of the international business people, objectified by the glamorous skyscrapers and the impressive skylines. At the same time, the local residents have been marginalized while their claims to the city are often neglected. Sassen proposes a dual city model to understand the global city with the aggravation of two contrasting classes - the new elite and the low-income workers (1998). The peripherization of the local urban inhabitants has ironically made the international business people the real owners of Shanghai. This theory implies the uneven development of the global city, which is glossed over by the authorities and urban planners as "our shared future" (Huang, 2004). The 2010 World Expo demonstrated a great picture of “better city, better life” of Shanghai to the entire world, which might only be an illusion for the actual local residents.
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The urban regeneration that shanghai has experienced in the 1990s is a particular example to show the influence of global capital on the urban landscape (Arkaraprasertkul, 2012). The continuously extended skyline of Pudong and the newly constructed skyscrapers all around the whole city hold responsible for the disappearance of the traditional alleyway house. The demolition and the relocation become a shared memory for the majority of Shanghainese (Huang, 2004). the modern gated community has appeared to replace the alleyway house clusters and becomes the dominant living form in Shanghai. A representative of the local residents, Shanghai writer wang Anyi described the everyday life of old shanghai in the traditional alleyway house, which implied the gap between the dazzling new look of the city and the faded glamour of old shanghai (Huang, 2004). The official slogan of the global city formation - “Development is the irrefutable truth” tells the core discipline of Shanghai's renewal, which seems to ignore the elements of daily life. To enable the capital flow to move as fast as possible, capitalism has been procucing urban spaces that can be defined as open and decentralized. With increasing mobility and freedom, people often feel that it is a small world. However, for many of the urban inhabitants of the global city, the “shrinking world” phenomenon is actually literal (Huang, 2004). The large scale construction of infrastructures, the reorganizaiton of the urban functions have taken the lived space of everyday practice. It sometimes causes the city users to feel that while the city is expanding, there's not even a place for life.
1840
1914
1940
2010
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2.2 THE DEBATE ON THE GATED COMMUNITY
Inner Relation
Current Situation
Outer Relation
Since the appearance of the typology, the gated community has aroused heated discussion in the field of urban planning around the world. In China, the gated community first emerged in the urban areas during the 1990s, along with the rapid development of housing construction (Wang, 2010) and then spread across the country at a great speed. At present, it has become the dominant form of residence and about 80% of the total amount of residential communities in China has been in the form of the gated community (Miao, 2003). Concerning the long history of enclosed residential compound in the country, the gated community seems to have its root in the Chinese tradition. However, Pow raises an interesting argument in his book: “One should be wary of uncritically importing ‘western’ urban theories and debates without paying attention to the particular conditions and local realities in China. However, taking the wall tradition for granted in the present urban narrative is also not rational” (2009). Therefore, the enclosed tendency of residence should be regarded in a dialectical way. Complexity and diversification are considered as important features of a city (Garvin, 2013). Public space is the most effective container of people’s interaction, as well as the main place for different classes to get to know one another (Holland et al, 2007). However, the residential pattern of the gated community has ignored importance of interaction between different classes, which splits relations between the community and other spaces of the outside world (Xu and Yang, 2008). At the same time, the inhabitants inside one cluster no longer maintain a close community relationship. People are gathered together passively by the financial status, which causes a lack of social engagement inside the compound.
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As for the external relation with the urban context, the model of the gated community shows a hostile attitude towards the city. The enclosed wall around the cluster not only segregates the community, but also makes the surrounding street lifeless. Especially in the old city of Shanghai, while the fabric of the alleyway house provides space for various local activities, the gated community acts as an obstacle to the continuity of the abundant street life. Looking at the internal social network, the living form of the gated community is a break with the collective living tradition in China. Although Shanghai has experienced great influence in the process of urbanization, the previous residential pattern such as the alleyway house still kept the core value of communal life. However, the contemporary gated community is a commercial-driven model, which encourages privilege, exclusiveness and privatization. The government’s mandatory regulation was one of the reasons for the popularity of the gated community in China. As always, the political power plays an important role in shaping Chinese urban space. A news posting by the state-run Xinhua news agency announced that from 2003 it would be mandatory for all newly built residential estates in Shanghai to be secured with surveillance cameras, infra-red detection systems and police warning devices at the neighbourhood boundaries (Pow, 2009). It is argued that this policy was an attempt by the local government to ‘subcontract’ social responsibilities such as security
and public infrastructure to private developers in order to reduce its financial burden (Huang, 2005). However, on the 21st February, 2016, the state council issued a new urban planning ruling stating that “no more enclosed residential compounds will be built in principle [and] existing residential and corporate compounds will gradually open up so the interior roads can be put into public use.” This would, it said, “save land and help reallocate transport networks.” From the information delivered by this new policy, it can be apparently seen that the central government holds the point that the form of the gated communities is no longer suitable for the development of Chinese cities. With the good intention, the government has yet to release any detailed proposal to implement the policy. However, the public does not seem to hold the same opinion with the urban experts. A few hours after the breaking news, a survey on Sina. com, China’s biggest news portal, had garnered 85,000 responses, with more than three-quarters of respondents opposing any opening-up of gated communities (International business times). It reflects a typical attitude towards the urban space from the traditional Chinese concept (Confucius culture) as it represents chaos, mess, danger and dirt. Therefore, when proposing the new living typology, public engagement must be taken into account.
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Gated Communities on the Essay2: Pilot Thesis for MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design
Shi Lin Hua Yuan 士林华苑
Xin Di Yuan 新地苑 2
Average Property Value ¥55653 /m Housing Type one-bedroom - five-bedroom Unit Size
60 m2 - 248 m2
Construction Year 2007 Total Number of Households 721 Total Site Area 54500 m2 Total Floor Area Plot Ratio
166819 m2 2.80
Forte Elegant Garden
Average Property Value ¥53168 /m Housing Type two-bedroom - five-bedroom Unit Size
76 m2 - 300 m2
Construction Year 2001 Total Number of Households 465 Total Site Area 24415 m2 Total Floor Area Plot Ratio
105000 m2 4.10
Sun City Garden (North District)
Sun City Garden (South District)
复地 雅园 2
Jia Ri Apartment
太阳都市花园（北区）
太阳都市花园（南区） 2
2
佳日公寓 2
Housing Type one-bedroom - five-bedroom Unit Size 76 m2 - 300 m2
Housing Type one-bedroom - five-bedroom Unit Size 70 m2 - 280 m2
Average Property Value ¥55808 /m Housing Type two-bedroom - five-bedroom Unit Size 81 m2 - 336 m2
Construction Year 2004 Total Number of Households 480 Total Site Area 29800 m2 Total Floor Area 74200 m2
Construction Year 1999 Total Number of Households 236 Total Site Area 9616 m2 Total Floor Area 34000 m2
Construction Year 2003 Total Number of Households 654 Total Site Area 13030 m2 Total Floor Area 43000 m2
Average Property Value
Plot Ratio
¥58686 /m
3.00
Average Property Value
Plot Ratio
¥47497 /m
4.50
Plot Ratio
3.30
Average Property Value ¥48356 /m2 Housing Type two-bedroom - three-bedroom Unit Size 70 m2 - 140 m2 Construction Year 1999 Total Number of Households 368 Total Site Area 12100 m2 Total Floor Area 24000 m2 Plot Ratio
1.98
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2.3 URBAN SPACE INVESTIGATION The urban space in Shanghai does not seem so friendly to the city inhabitants, especially pedestrians, where the space of everyday life has been squeezed by the construction of urbanization. However, when Shanghai is being observed at the street level, various interesting urban activities can still be found on the street. People occupy and utilize the urban space as an extension of their everyday life, even when the city is extremely compact. It shows the other side of this socalled international metropolis, which is local, attractive and unique. However, there are only limited records of the contemporary urban life in Shanghai, which shows a certain neglect of the everyday life in the city by the researchers. In order to make suitable place for urban activities in the proposal, it is essential to discover urban life in contemporary Shanghai and analyse the space characteristics required by different activities at the street level. There are several types of urban space that are being frequently used by the city inhabitants. The most popular spot is the sidewalk. Considering the history of Chinese cities, which demonstrates people’s preference for linear space, it is comprehensible that the street is the main container of various social and commercial activities in the city. One of the interesting scenes to be seen in Shanghai is a group of people playing mah-jong on the sidewalk. Although there is busy traffic happening next to them on the street, the players as well as the audience seem to be totally immersed in the game. All the equipment including the mah-jong table and folding chairs are prepared by the participants. There can be several reasons for people to play street mahjong. Firstly, it is for free. There are board and card games clubs all over the city, but they usually charge 10 Yuan per hour, and there is also 40-Yuan minimum charge each time. Besides, I consider the audience another important factor. The sidewalk provides a continuous flow of people, which means potential game participants and viewers. As the pedestrians become part of the game, the activity also gains a social value.
Figure 7.
There are various commercial activities on the street as well. Most peddlers can’t afford their own stores, neither do they have legal license, but they usually have fixed spots on the sidewalk or around the street corner. The types of trades include grocery and food selling, the stands of which are set on refitted tricycles, so the peddlers can flee away quickly with all their equipment when the urban inspectors (Cheng Guan) come to impose a fine. Unlike the situation in Europe, there are usually no well-organized street markets in Shanghai (or any other Chinese cities). The grocery and food peddlers are scattering all around the city. Importantly, all these different types of street commercial activities also become a part of the local residents’ social life. It can be observed that people living in the neighbourhood prefer to gather around the temporary booths, which then act as social nodes on the street. Due to the fact that the peddlers usually have a regular place to set up their portable stores, and the services they provide are relevant to daily routines, the residents socialize a lot with them and tend to regard the peddlers as members of their neighbourhood.
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The pocket park is also a popular place for residents to relax themselves. Unlike the linear space on the sidewalk, the street park provides larger room for sports and exercise. Taichi is quite popular among the senior group, while the younger generation usually plays the badminton. Many people (mostly the elderly) also start their day by “Walking” their pet birds. It usually happens in the early morning, when people walk with the birdcages to a park nearby. After arriving, they will then hang up their birdcages on the lower branches of a tree. Listening to their birds’ chirp, their owners are gathering below the tree, often comparing their pets and exchanging care tips. According to China Daily, the hobby of walking pet birds has been popular in China since the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) and this tradition continues with many people still taking pleasure from this simple outdoor activity. (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2011-05/03/content_12432037. htm) For families with small babies, the street park works in the similar way as for bird walkers. It acts an important social space for local residents who share the same experience and provides opportunities for them to communicate. There is also one activity, square dancing, which takes larger space and normally requires a hard pavement. It is an exercise routine performed to loud music, which is especially popular with middle-aged and retired women. Due to its low cost and ease of participation,[2]it has been estimated to have over 100 million practitioners throughout China. (Hu, Qingyuan. "Dancing with danger".English.people.cn. Retrieved 16 October 2014.) It often happens during the evening, when people finish their dinners and are ready to do some exercise. However, this popular exercise has also aroused a sharp controversy all over the country in recent years because of its loud noise.
Figure 8.
From the analyses, we can identify different spatial requirements of the representative urban activities in Shanghai. Some activities need small linear space, where there is a continuous flow of pedestrians, while the others demand larger open space. Besides, exercises such as square dancing have special acoustic requirements. Most importantly, venues for all the activities need to be accessible on foot. The reference distance is 300 metres, which is 5 minute by walking. Another feature of the urban activities is self-organized. Most equipment is provided by the participants themselves, which implies a certain shortage of public facilities and the ignorance of street life by urban planners. Some of the activities seem to happen spontaneously, but there’s an everyday routine behind the behaviour. To summarize, street activities form an essential part of people’s daily life. However, the urban environment in Shanghai cannot fulfil some requirements of the activities. According to the spatial features, design approaches can be made on the planning level as well as on the street level.
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3. THE FUTURE
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3. HYPOTHESIS - PROPOSING A NEW TYPOLOGY concerning the features of an international metropolis as well as the city's colonial past, Shanghai has always been a hybrid of local and western culture. As the frontline facing the rest of the world, the urban space should have a great degree of openness and inclusiveness to the diversity. My first attempt is to creat a conversation between the local and the international. As stated before, different residential typologies serve different groups of people, and also stand for different lifestyles. However, the exlusive feature of the gated community on the site segregates its residents from the city. Therefore, the proposal is made up of two typologies, the high-rise residential tower and the slope roof structure, each standing for the new middle class and the local Shanghainese. The tower serves to maintain the requirement of high density by the city, while the low-rise shelter provides space for the street activities.
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At the ground level, I regard the roof structure as a container for the street activities, most of which are temporary. considering this characteristic, the free plans provide the street traders and the local inhabitants opportunity to utilize the space as they want. The concept is to let the space grow by itself and it will gradually be tailored to satisfy the needs of the users.
The street level of the community is openned up to the urban environment, in order to continue the vibrant street life. Facing the south, the slope roof structure indicates a traditional space character in China and integrates with the surrounding low-rise alleyway houses. The arcade of the tower provides shared space for the residents, and also demonstrates a western spatial organization, representing the social status of the international elites.
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I consider the ground level of the community an important threshold between the residential space and the urban context. How the tower can interact with the low-rise houses below bocomes an enssential point of the proposal. Therefore, some experiments with the typology of the alleyway house have been done, in order to define the way to interfere with the ground level space.
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A particular site is chosen inside the old city of Shanghai, along the Henan S Road of major traffic. On the west of the site are several gated community developments while the other three sides are surrounded by the small-scale alleyway houses.
The first approach is to break down the large block into smaller clusters, in order to create space for the pedestrians. Then, the structures of the residential tower are set in the gird. At last, the towers are added on the top.
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Beneath the tower, I try to create spatial interaction between the residents and the urban activities to generate the community participation in the civic environment of the whole neighbourhood.
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The section shows an attempt to create a continuous path from the traditional urban fabric to the modernized environment. The tower on the provides high-end apartments for the new middle class while the other as a relocational space for the former residents. 60
The terraces between the two towers act as stages of daily life for the both groups, in order to create a spatial integration as well as a communal sense of community. Fay Huang, Department of Architecture, University of Cambridge 61
Essay2: Pilot Thesis for MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design
I need to do my laundry
Hi Chen! The restaurant down there looks great
How are you!
a gallery up there!
5 yuan each
back in 5 min
How's school?
nice weather
good boy!
The boundary of the community is formed by small-scale stores to continue the similar urban fabric as well as the rich street life.
Learning from the alleyway house, the residents can overlook the social activities downstairs to create a suiviliance neighbourhood.
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Essay2: Pilot Thesis for MPhil in Architecture and Urban Design
CONCLUSION Through the overall analysis of the transformation of urban forms in China, it can be seen that the residential model of the gated community has lost the core value of the traditional collective living form. At the same time, it also shows a hostile attitude towards the urban environment, which results in the gradual dissapearance of the vibrant urban life. Having witnessed the fast urbanization process of the city, the old city of Shanghai now presents a fragmentalized urban fabric, with defferent living typologies inside. The difference is not only about the architectural apearance and the spatial organization of the buildings, but also represent diverse ways of living. The present dominant typology - the gated community only serves a exclusive group of people, which has caused segregation of classes. As a city of cultural diversity, this living form can no longer fit the social and spatial situation in Shanghai. At the same time, the new planning regulation also implies the attitude of the authority. Therefore, a new reisdential typology is in need to satisfy the requirement of the society. The proposal starts from combining two different typologies together, in order to maintain the dual functions and to serve the two main classes in the city. Then the two types will integrate with each other and finally become a whole, which is the new living pattern. During the design process, the spatial features from the traditional dwelling forms are analyzed and applied, becoming useful precedents for the new typology for the future. Both the internal organization of the residential space and the external relationship with the urban environment are considered. On the one hand, the community needs to create a certain sense of community to continue the tradition of collective life in China. On the other hand, the residential compound needs to be able to integrate with the historical environment in the old city of Shanghai. What's more, the population growth and the land value both require the high density of the residence, which is an inevitable problem that needs to be faced in Shanghai.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY Staeheli, L. A.; Thompson, A. (1997) Citizenship, Community, and aaaaStruggles for Public Space, The Professional Geographer, 49(1): aaaa28–38. Su, B.; Pang, X. (2012) On the Developing Modes of Creative aaaaIndustrial Areas: Comparison on Xintiandi, Tianzifang, 8 Haoqiao aaaaand Zhizaoju, Global Urban Studies, 5(5): 33-40. Wang, Y. (2010) The Gated Communities In Chinese Cities: Problems aaaaAnd Countermeasures, Modern Urban Research, 32(3): 85-90. Wang, Z.; Xu, M. (2013) A Study on the Origin of Forms of Gated aaaaCommunity From the Perspective of Chinese Traditional aaaaSettlements, Journal of Human Settlements in West China, 28(3): aaaa99–108.Xu, K.; Semsroth, K. (2013) Fall and Revitalization of ‘Publicness’ – aaaaChinese Urban Space in Comparison with European Ones, Urban aaaaPlanning Forum, 208(3): 61-69.Xu, M.; Yang, Z. (2008) Theoretical debate on gated communities: aaaagenesis, aaaacontroversies, and the way forward, Urban Design aaaaInternational, 13(4): 213-226. Yang, Y. R., and Chang, C. H. (2007) An urban regeneration regime aaaain China: A case study of urban redevelopment in Shanghai’s aaaaTaipingqiao Area, Urban Study, 44(9): 1809–1826. Yung, E., Chan, E., and Xu, Y. (2014) Community-Initiated aaaaAdaptive Reuse of Historic Buildings and Sustainable aaaaDevelopment in the Inner City of Shanghai, Urban Planning aaaaDevopment, 140(3).
Figure 1. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=rtx1twec.jpg&source=lnms&tbm= isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwikt4_UgprMAhXIbxQKHVOmAJAQ_AU IBygB&biw=1426&bih=708#imgrc=UIzhNr-4-lj1WM%3A Figure 2. h t t p : / / w w w. c h i n a b a i k e . c o m / a r t i c l e / U p l o a d P ic/2007-5/2007520184610239.jpg Figure 3. http://hanmoxuan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/p299.jpg Figure 4. Bracken, G. (2013) The Shanghai Alleyway House – A vanishing urban vernacular. London: Routledge. Figure 5 Bracken, G. (2013) The Shanghai Alleyway House – A vanishing urban vernacular. London: Routledge. Figure 6. Bracken, G. (2013) The Shanghai Alleyway House – A vanishing urban vernacular. London: Routledge. Figure 7. https://www.flickr.com/photos/robshanghai/10869001664/in/ photostream/ Figure 8. http://www.theguardian.com/cities/2014/apr/09/shanghai-urban-guidebest-worst-china-city#img-5
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