5.4] The Urban village, Guangzhou, China

5.4] The Urban village, Guangzhou, China

APARTMENTS, RENOVATION, GUANGZHOU, CHINA

Architects: TEAM_BLDG

Area: 6000 m²

Year: 2019

Figure 47) – Guangzhou, China Figure 48) - Exterior view of the building

Guangzhou is the only first-tier city where a large number of urban villages still exist in the city centre. As of 2016, according to incomplete statistics, there are 304 villages in Guangzhou, with a total area of 716 square kilometres and a population of nearly 6 million. Just like the area where this renovation project is located, due to its superior location, a large number of migrants still flow in every year. However, most of the residential buildings they live in are dilapidated, facing the urgent need to be improved its living environment. A severe lack of funds and intricate surroundings are the biggest obstacles to the renovation of these old apartments.

The residential building to be renovated this time is located at a very special position, with a bustling urban trunk road in front and the Siyou meat and vegetable market, the only market in the urban village. The stores necessary for life, such as food, groceries and hardware, stand in the market. Nearby, there are two other residential buildings with very similar interior structure.

Figure 50) - Plan of the redeveloped building

As the front connecting the city with the urban village, how the transformed facade increases the degree of integration to link with the city and maintain cohesion with the community is one of the key demands for the facade reconstruction. The "dialogue" with the original buildings in the urban village behind also highlighted the contrast between the new and old languages, and the symbiosis with the surrounding buildings of big and small sizes emphasized the sense of "collage" of the texture level of the city facade.

Figure 51) - View showing the shops at the ground level

The site is made full use in the interior of the building to make the staggered-floor corridor, and the east and west end of the corridor are connected with two staircases, which met the functional needs of small family settlement in the village at that time. However, there are a large number of structures in the inner courtyard surrounded by residents from the north and south and the air conditioning machines and wire chimneys that are scattered at random, which makes the only open public space in the original building unusually dirty and disorderly and there is even serious rat infestation in the courtyard.

Figure 51) - View showing the shops at the ground level Figure 52) - View showing the exterior of the building

The design should keep the original structure of the building as much as possible and retain the three spatial levels from the private to the public areas in the original buildings, namely the connection of different house types at each floor, the three-dimensional enclosure of the staggered floor corridor and the staircase in front of houses, and convergence at the central courtyard. The interlayer between the skirt buildings along the street and the residents is filled with the gym, audio-visual rooms and other public spaces and the top terrace is set with sightseeing, drying and other recreational areas. At the entrance, the sightseeing elevator is added to reach each floor conveniently.

In the process of renovation, due to not repairing for longer time and disorderly pipeline, the setting of the upper and lower water buried pipes and the new fire fighting pipeline inside the building became the biggest problem in the renovation. However, how to connect the pipeline setting in the urban village with the existing municipal pipeline was also reasonably solved through multi-party efforts and consultations.