Lan Tian Concise ADR

Urbanism on the move Rethinking the residential development in China How can we intergate vernacular life into dynamic public space to preserve and develop city’s identity?

LanTian s3230953

Research question revolution

Content Abstract

how could public space be integrated into the associated spaces in urban in order to adjust to new life style and demand?

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Context

Vernacular public life in longtang/shanghai Everyday urbanism City identity-pyjamas in public City identity-match making City identity-street market City identity-match making interaction urbanism city renewal----along Suzhou river

How could we engender new informal public spaces by connecting chucked urban fragments, in responds to social alienation and land scarcity?

how do the informal activities occur in, and create public space?

Size matters

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Adjacency of public space

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As a landscape architect, how could we activate the public space by reintroducing local street vendors into urban fabric?

Design exploration

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How can we programme dynamic public space to embrace a vibrant city?

Public accessibility

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Partnership of public and private

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design exploration II

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Conclusion

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5 minus living circle/ hash the jigsaw puzzle Alternative transportation Mix using land Dynamic people movement

How could we intergrade small-scale landscape into daily routs by recreating and connecting informal public spaces in response to high density and flexible living style?

Pop-up public space/ temporary adjacency People replacement/ adjacency of living pattern The city only for elites vendors

How could we develop commercial network to activate public space in repond to the shanghai city feature vanishing?

Space subdivision

Degree of publicness Ownership

How can we intergate vernacular life into dynamic public space to preserve and develop city’s identity?

Ambiguous boundary Space interaction Flexible transition

Chines Shan-Shui Tattoo Series, No 1, Huang Yan, http:// artobserved.com/2009/08/ go-see-new-york-dont-panic-i-amselling-my-collection-featuring-worksby-richard-prince-nobuyoshi-araki-hopeatherton-george-condo-barnaby-furnas-mr-ryan-mcginness-marilyn-minter-ta/

Space subdivision Engage with landscape pop-up platform

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Abstract

Urbanism on the move

Rethinking the residential development in China How can we intergate vernacular life into dynamic public space to preserve and develop city’s identity?

LanTian s3230953 Shanghai is regarded as a symbol of China’s rapid development during the last two decades. It has been displaying the ambitious of modern urban development. However, while bulldozers run over every alley and crane machines erect countless new buildings, people, particularly local Shanghai residents called Shanghainese, still remember the old way of life. In their views that the current urban development is creating isolated “islands”: vast fields of residential zones are characteristically separated from commercial development. These identical and anonymous districts are replacing the old residential alleyways. The old living styles are forced to change with the urban westernization. The price Shanghai paid is not only erasing many historical buildings but also damaging a precious city identity.

One problem happened in Shanghai is that modern districts are disconnected from the indigenous life the city used to have. The current preservation practices intend to turn the city itself into a self-parody in an effort to remain old. The new building zones tear the old human subject apart, which neglects local context and traditions. The entire contemporary cities are neither all modern in exactly the same way nor old. When people move to a new place, they have to see bye to their traditional custom. To deal with this problem, I focus my research on analyzing high quality and vibrant public spaces in the old living atmosphere through different critic catalogues. In order to figure out how these spaces are activated by various people interactions, I examine the scale of neighborhood, the adjacency of public space, the public accessibility, the partnership of public and private and so on. The understanding of how the public space operates helps me to explore the contemporary approach to narrative conventional public life. Security, congestion, economic vitality and community severance are also tackled with people interactions. Based on the above work, I propose that keeping local custom could be a key theme in urban renovation, which could be achieved through a new typological and programmatic development. In this way, special civil culture could be preserved and developed along the modernization.

This ADR records the process of interaction among intricate social, political, economic, and aesthetic forces by design projects in the contemporary Chinese metropolis--Shanghai. Each project examines specific topics, problems, and opportunities. I am searching the way to understand the unideal city as conversation among its residents.

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http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2010/03/shanghai/ shanghai-map

Given this background, my research aims to investigate ways for preserving and developing a city’s identity during its development. First, I examine the unique Shanghai custom happened in public realm, such as match making, street market and wearing pajama on the street. These kinds of social activities have formed dynamic public spaces and vernacular feature in Shanghai. Secondly, I intend to introduce a new modern residential typology in high-density precinct for accommodating vernacular living habit, rather than building certain nostalgia living environment to recollect the old memories. During this process, the conventional urban plan, architecture formation, and public space design are challenged by the up to date strategy to preserve and develop city’s identity.

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Vernacular public life in longtang/shanghai

Context In the 20 years urbanization, more than 50% of Chinese populations (600 millions) are living in the city. With an overall population density of more than 2,800 people per square kilometer in Shanghai, each person could get less than 8 square metres. Mass migration move into the city is leading to urban sprawl, although the government has steadily improved the living conditions, nearly half of households are overcrowded.

During the city dynamic renewal, residents who are relocated for private developers are usually choose bigger replacement homes far away from originals, and for government projects, such as expansion of the metro, residents can get a lump-sum compensation to buy a new home. These practices drive the real estate price in Shanghai soars which is expected to overtake Hong Kong’s record. During this process, Shanghainese have gradually been replaced from old low-density buildings to the high risers.

Densification and massive vertical growth show impacts on downtown residential zone. In order to help ‘urban oasis’ survive, Chinese government regulation requires that every residential parcel at least has to maintain roughly 30% of land covered by vegetation. However, in implementing the regulation there is a residence predicament: the central part of building cluster is planned as the community centre, but the open space in-between is filled with nothing but landscaping. In addition of creating the garden-like picture, walls and fences are set up for security concerns. The whole area is isolated from general public. There are only limited gates accesses to vehicular linkage. The vast private green spaces are terribly underused.

The streets adjacent to those big scale residential districts designed for necessary daily commutation only not create traffic congregation, but also bring dullness, because the streetscapes are boring with walls and fences on the side.

Old Shanghai residential alley are called “longtang” in Shanghainese. The public spaces for locals are the varied widths and sizes alleys between architectures, just like hutongs in Beijing that have played the same role. Life in a narrow space has been continuing for over 100 years since the first generation entered the longtangs in Shanghai. Today, most people have moved out of longtangs and into new high-rise buildings, but longtangs are still in memory. In the programme, “Growing up with Shanghai”, many young Shanghainese who were born and raised during the rapid modernization in Shanghai from 1980s tov1990s told their city memories. They talked about how their old “home” look like and felt. It helped me to rediscover the precious snitches of their vernacular life.

In longtangs, a good and close neighborhood relationship has taken shape, which can hardly appear in other modern residences. Everyone have to share the necessary infrastructures in the alley, such as extended kitchen, outdoors communal toilets, clothes hanging areas.

Longtang is such a place that provided the residents more chances to communicate with each other. All the residents are closely associated and conglomerated, thus bringing forth a strong sense of localism, safety and family-likeness. The residents, with different professions, different backgrounds and different cultures have brought a diversified life here. People with different social status, have learned from each other, influenced each other, thus shaped a special civil culture.

An action from the project “The Wrinkles of the City” in Shanghai, for which JR photographed elders from the city to represent the memory of the city’s past.Credit: Photograph by JR/Agence VU

The life in the Longtangs is rich and full of vitality for Shanghainese. In the hot summer, lovers are sitting together under trees, children are playing around, the alley are full of people. Some of the old people are keen on doing public welfare activities, for example, doing the cleaning work, taking care of each other and looking after the children. Such activities, carried on spontaneously, have more human sense and interests of life. Sharing responsibility for security in public spaces is nothing new for longtang dwellers.

Unfortunately, we cannot afford to keep all those old living buildings in the urban core; however could we keep the major merits of compact living and reintroduced that intimacy in the contemporary environment?

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Everyday urbanism

City identity-pyjamas in public

Cities can be fun, when I saw Shanghainese wearing their pajamas walking on the roads. They are not attempting to express themselves anything but to save time from the unnecessary changing to cover a short distance. In the old time, most Shanghainese shared outdoor communal toilets and thus the boundaries of what was considered one’s home have expanded past people’s houses to the public bathrooms. Since 1980s, that relaxation of the dress code became acceptable, people wear them day in day out. This unique activity reflect old living environment and influenced by urban reality. In the city renewal, the indigents have been clearing out to the new settlement far away from their original land. As a consequent, the old neighborhood network in the last decades has been broken; the outstanding chapter of vivid living pattern seems not possible could be carried on by new western-influence generation and new city dwellers; the distinguished Shanghai landscape will probably be sacrificed for ambitious, identical and anonymous urban plan.

What makes a vibrant city? Is it energy? Cultural diversity? Sustainability? Livability? Will People have the power to drive change through creativity, enthusiasm and conviction?

As landscape architects, we are making every decision through the design process, a voice whispers, “If you build it, will they come”. The vibrant city is our goal to achieve, however the vibrancy may not be able to be planned, but it certainly can be encouraged. As John Kaliski, Margaret Crawford and others did in Everyday Urbanism. Everyday urbanism may be easy to notice because its modest interactions are characterized by spontaneous programming, but it is impossible to plan in a formal or bureaucratic sense. Then the question is “can we encourage those events happened in the modern context with our design intervention?”

Rather than to improve what already exists, I want to explore the ways to restructure the new public spaces for accommodating Chinese vernacular customs.

image come from: http://intelligenttravel. nationalgeographic.com/2010/05/25/ no_pjs_in_shanghai/

The following three indigenous groups respond to their living environments in resourceful and imaginative ways. Those ways they sense the publicness, reclaim the public space are unique. The culture underneath those ways is fascinating. A city’s identity is presented by its people. The great cities we celebrated are not utopia or postcard images but a place which empowers everyday and ordinary life. Can we rearrange urban fabric to reflect their concept of values, cherish their memories, and respect their cultures?

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City identity-street market “Cities have the capability of providing something for everybody, only because, and only when, they are created by everybody.”

— Jane Jacobs

Are we feeling humiliated by keeping our own identity?

The 2010 World Expo has turned Shanghai into an international carnival. When the city named the slogan “Better city, better life”, Catchy red signs “Pajamas don’t go out of the door; be a civilized resident for the Expo” is posted throughout the city. Volunteer “pajama policemen” patrol the neighborhoods, telling pajama wearers to go home and change.

Celebrities and socialites appear on TV to promote the idea that sleepwear in public is “backward” and “uncivilized.” What is the better life for people crowed in urban? When will the city compromise to their residents，reflect their stories, care their real life? I am arguing the urban plan should be considered as a process of negotiation between city and real life.

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The most vibrant snap I caught in the city is in the traditional Chinese street- market. It spontaneously merges and disperses in specific time. Locals love to join in those events, buying local crafts and tasting snacks along the street. The city is animated through the collective dynamic actions of individuals. In the high-density urban fabric, the places where work, living, play co-exist and interact with each other. The easy access is crucial toward limited people walking radius.

The temporary public spaces possess flexible functions in compact context. Those vendors serve their communities perfectly. Local residents enjoyed the workable multifunctional spaces in the neighborhood and they are participators in those events. It is difficult to tell who are performers or spectators, they are residents of the same village or district within an urban area, and they easily exchange their roles played. The boundary of public and private is ambiguous, and flexible space transitions accommodate dynamic social events.

The above examples show the ways of Shanghai residents arranging their belongings to claim their territory are different. The difference results from administrative regulations, conventional costumes, and economic reasons. People activate public realms where they are inhabited and shared. Outside the usual designed systems, these temporary commercial zones are unfettered and everyone has opportunity to devise the urban narrative. As a landscape architect, the close observation of surrounding physical or historical context helped me to explore the dynamic urban interactions base on the ordinary life.

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City identity-match making

interaction urbanism

Dynamic Social events amused me the most in Shanghai.

Tons of parents gathered every weekend at the People’s Park with their kids’ information written on a paper; with hopes to match make their unmarried adult children with another person.

In the old days, families worked out marriages and weddings.

Even though China is clearly a society in transition, from deeply traditional to something much more 21st century, there are still plenty of people here -- parents, specifically -- working with a deadline. As the child gets closer to 30, the parents get more and more worried that their child will be unable to find a suitable mate.

The map is the work produced by Debord, titled “The Naked City”, developed in 1957. The segments of the map are intended to represent the ‘unities of atmosphere’ found in Paris, Debord dissatisfied with capitalist derived urban fabric apart. Although generally based on Paris, these maps could be created for any city, even for shanghai.

They set up tents to clipping the resumes papers on. Trees, benches, walls, even the walkways, are covered with what are basically “want” ads. The landscape has been changed by this social event and reflects the transitional perspective from every participator. Why does it happen in the People’s Park? People’s Park is a public park, which transformed from a part of the racecourse In the 1950s, after gambling and horse racing was banned by government in 1949. In the urban transition, how to lead the convectional figure into contemporary urban fabric?

My design goal is filling lives between the grids, blocks and parcels. Under different theories and disciplines, researchers are seeking for various approaches to connect urban segments in urban context. Rory Hyde and Scott Mitchell’s project examines the changing role of public space in the context of increased information flows, named “open source urbanism”. When People gather, encounter in public space, they will activate the whole precinct. With The incremental interactions among people, thus the urban fabric can be reunited. Edward T. Hall elaborate “human behavior and social interaction are essentially spatially triggered from the unconscious utilization of space to the direct unconscious chemical communication between the glands of persons at close distance.” What is the urban context for public space? How can modern space welcome people to encounter? Why do people go there?

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city renewal----along Suzhou river Dyeing and Print

Cotton Mill

Cotton Mill

Dyeing and Print

Flour Mill

Rubber Factory Textile PLant Vehicle Repair Factory

Textile PLant Storage

Paper Mill

old factory

Green space connection Community share infrastructure

During the deindustrialized process, the plan from government is setting up series of green space and shared infrastructures spaces to connect two riverbanks, but the scale of block are still as big as industrial land, even the park are bigger than average. Most lands are rezoning into residential functions, but the traffic system is only designed for cars, not for pedestrians. The necessary civil infrastructures have not been considered in human scale.

Suzhou Creek has played an important role throughout Shanghai’s history. The Bund is just on the east, as is Nanjing Lu, and the People’s Park areas. This section of the city has quite a lot of deindustrialized lands, which are considered in the compact city discourse as “empty” spaces, waiting to be refilled with new uses. Since1998, authorities have launched the Suzhou Creek Rehabilitation Project, a 12-year-program to improve the water quality, mitigate flood impact, and introduce water resource management and push for urban revitalization and a higher living standard in the desolated areas along Suzhou River.

Most old factories and warehouses along Suzhou River were set be demolished in favor of the construction of modern high-rise residential buildings in Shanghai’s fastdeveloping city center, aiming at a social and economic regeneration of the Suzhou Creek area. Some artists in the late 1990s move into the old warehouses and preserve part of them as art district-M50. At the moment, most old residential and industrial facilities have been replaced in those 10 years; 1 square kilometer of parks have been construct as civil infrastructure for locals; the waterfront landscapes have been transformed.

Construction land Industrial land Civil infrastructure

Historical building Characteristic building Historical area

Public green space

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Commercial area Educational area

High-density residency Low-density residency Old style residency 9- 20 levels building

Pedestrian bridge Station entry Main traffic connection Traffic transit point Parking area

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Cross over the boundaries Modernism

Walking on the pedestrian pathway

Besides the homogenous, controlled, ‘official’ public spaces, there are good deals of undefined, interstitial, ubiquitous “informal” public spaces in contemporary city. Such as street, bridge, road or vacant overlooked mall lots.

I am trying to find the ideal spaces on my site,connect them without phsical fance or walls.Then the question is: without bunkering our cities with physical objects that ruin the experience of access and publicness that people desire, how could a city give enough feeling of security ,especially in the precinct with wide rich-poor gap?

2000

Firstly, the most of massive residential parcels are fenced up for security concern, and general public can’t access to those parcels. People have to de-tour to get public transportation.

The physical fence, transportation, and even big scale parks chop neighborhoods up. Tight control is ruining the experience of access and public openness that people desire. Living In the community by walking seems could not be a choice. There are not enough foot bridges connecting this area by pedestrian. On one side of the river there are a residential center and a metro line station, and on the other side there is a public park. The inhabitants of the northern bank can’t enjoy the green space, and the people of the southern bank can’t access the metro line system.

Secondly, there are not supermarkets, shops or shopping centers nearby. Apparently it is not possible for people to travel a short distance to get what they want in the real life. This situation will be not pajama-friendly but an opportunity for vendors to serve the neighborhood as an alternative commercial space. Picking a snack from the vendor and buying vegetables downstairs could at least give pajama wearers a reason to show up.

The third, the majority of residents in this area move to this neighborhood in less than 5 years, and they do not familiar with the neighborhood and they do not have many chances to meet others. There are big gap between rich and poor. The current plan separates the two groups into isolated zones. Traditional custom and living habit have rarely been carried by the new immigrations.

2002

2006

2010

Demolished area Rebuild area

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Informal public space

metro station Vito Acconci (1990) pointed out “public space, in an electronic age, is space on the run. Public space is not space in the city but the city itself. Not nodes but circulation routes; not buildings and plazas but road and bridges.” The informal public spaces are neglected on this site. Rather than building the isolated and controlled ‘public space’, can we program the in between space on our daily routine for a better pedestrian mobility and vibrancy in the city?

Residential precinct

metro station Park community

Vito Acconci ,“public space in private time” Critical Inquiry16.

Chicago (University of Chicago Press)1990 , pp.900-918

10 minutes redial

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Opportunities on site

40’s

Although the old buildings are doom to be demolished, there are rich mixtures of diverse living environment through the renewal process. They varied in the density, layout, and figure. Among the mordent high risers, there are vast green spaces as community center; however the public space lost vibrancy there. Why? This phenomenon makes me rethink how can we fill people in those underused public space? How the urban plan, architectures and even vegetation be adjusted and compromised to urban prosperity?

70’s

The public park was built in millions without easy access. The private garden was designed beautifully but fully fenced up. The clear boundary lead to that plenty of green spaces are underuse at the moment. Are the problems that guide the formation of public space beyond the grasp of landscape architect or urban planner, regardless of their well-intentioned effort?

00’s

Can we program it even before we build it? Can we design the vibe public space by creating the partnership between the public and private, commercial and residential, individual and communities? Can we distribute huge shared garden into different neighborhood, communities, and even individual? Can we activate the whole district by rearranging the buildings, gardens, streets, and so on? Not mention the convenient compact life they will provide, I am thinking about the interaction between people, the living environment nearby, and the dynamic public spaces for all type groups.

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5 minus living circle/ hash the jigsaw puzzle

The indigenous living style reflects local people’s perspective in term of public senses. Base on the observation on those vernacular living environment, I am going to critic the public spaces in following catalogues: • The size of public space • Adjacency of public space • Public accessibility • Dynamic aggregation • Flexible and transitional space • Partnership of public and private

Size matters

The Death and Life of Great American Cities, written by Jane Jacobs in the early 1960s, called for planners to reconsider the single-use housing projects, large car-dependent thoroughfares, and segregated commercial centres that had become the “norm,” Which means that the physical separations of where people lived from where they worked, and shopped becomes a tradition. linkage

everyday urbanism

CITY/Þll life between grids

ownership city renewal

dynamic human experience

partnership between public and private

temporary public space

security mobility and ßexibility

New Urbanism promotes walkable neighbourhoods that contain a range of context-appropriate open space, architecture and planning. It arose in the United States in the early 1980s, and has gradually continued to reform many aspects of smart development. New Urbanists believe that building up a mixused residential zone within five-minute walk center can reduce traffic congestion, increase the supply of affordable housing, and rein in suburban sprawl. The average of 5 minus walking circle roughly covers 0.25 miles (1,300 ft; 0.40 km).

INDIVIDUAL/

informal public space

vendors private own public

convenient life style home shop

reclaim public space

interactions scale

openness and partition

compact

intersection

economic reason

living reality

utopian

infrastructures

Jane Jacobs: The Death and Life of Great American Cities (1961)

adjacency

share space

passive enjoyment of urban space DEVELOPER/ negotiation

compensations

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I carefully draw the 10 minutes and then 5 minutes living circle on the map based on the urban context. The challenge to me is how we could mash the huge square, parks, or even a tremendous shopping center in 0.4 km. Some of them are even bigger than the whole 0.4 km. It means that every element in plan have to be smaller. The fundamental code for a walkable city is: no minimum size, but instead have a maximum limit to keep the increments of development small. Can longtang living environment be activated by shortening distance and mixed land using? Will people wear pyjama to visit small groceries, restaurants, and popular street vendors? How to introduce vendors in urban fabric to programme the network of public space?

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Alternative transportation While in Shanghai, photographer Alain Delorme became fascinated by the extraordinary loads carried by migrants on their bicycles and other rigged vehicles: ”piles of stacked ‘made in china’ products which form unusual sculptures…loads of tires, water containers, office chairs, flowers…”

China is famous to be a bicycle kingdom. Despite dramatic decreases in the number of cyclists in Shanghai over the past 20 years, Riding bikes are still popular. It is common to see deliveries and use of bicycles for retail and selling. Besides that it is an alternative for transportation by riding bicycles. This undoubtedly motivates the city to build people oriented grid and develop a strategy. New Urbanists support pedestrian-oriented urban plan and the balanced development of jobs and housing.

The foundational text is the Charter of the New Urbanism, which says:

transport of goods and products, informal collection of recycling, deliveries and use of bicycles for retail and selling is still very common.

Charter of the New Urbanism ,http://www.cnu.org/charter

Left image come from:http://www.alaindelorme.com/?p=works&ga=totem&ch=image Right image come from: http://spacingtoronto.ca/2009/05/14/goods-by-bicyclein-china/

We advocate the restructuring of public policy and development practices to support the following principles: neighborhoods should be diverse in use and population; communities should be designed for the pedestrian and transit as well as the car; cities and towns should be shaped by physically defined and universally accessible public spaces and community institutions; urban places should be framed by architecture and landscape design that celebrate local history, climate, ecology, and building practice.

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Mix using land

dynamic accumulation “User behaviour becomes influenced and controlled by natural human interactions rather than by artificial regulation”

Land use factors such as density, mix, connectivity and walkability affect how people travel in a community, especially crucial for pajama wearers. The diverse land mixtures limit the increments of development and keep the commute distance short. In the longtang, it easy to find shops, restaurants near the house. Everything is organized in a loose system. Vendors always play an important role in serving the neighborhood. This picture was taken in “Tianzifang”, where was modern edition of old environment. The development did not drive all local people out, while bars, cafes, craft shops, studio, galleries, and boutiques are opened in unique architecture of old shanghai city. Now, this place is not only imbued with the city’s historical and cultural legacies, but also a grand place to live in.

Morning in Shanghai, seniors are doing exercise in the park, who are so fond of old-time breakfast that they still walk blocks every day to the nearest stall. In many modern residential communities, it’s hard to find a breakfast stall selling traditional food.

Will that be a dilemma when China embraces the modernity? 4,000-year-old culture and living style look for a new way to be retransformed rather than merely westernized.

Comparably, on the site, most buildings are in residential zone, which are lack of vibrant city life.

5 am-7 am

breakfast

3 pm-5 am

snack/shop

5 am-7 am

exercise

residential building

7 am-8 am

breakfast

From analyzing the daily schedules of various groups, I found that the vernacular events happened every day, such as buying vegetables from vendors, eating breakfast on the streets, enjoying traditional snack after classes. Can those activates refill the dull street full of souls? Can those spaces enhance the people interaction?

Can the interactions benefit the community? By reintroducing the old events back into the city, how will the city respond to?

“Shared Space”. Shared Space Institute. http://www.sharedspace.eu/en/publications/ downloads/cat_view/15-boeken-enbrochures/17-eigen-uitgaven/. “Booklets published by the EU partnership.”

9 pm-11 pm evening market

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9 am-11 am

3 pm-5 pm

breakfast

shop/ buying vegtable

7 am-8 am

5 pm-7 pm

breakfast

dinner

7 am-8 am

5 pm-7 pm

breakfast

buying vegtable

9 pm-11 pm evening market

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Adjacency of public space The creation of public spaces is a complex process. The spaces ought to meet various human needs (ecological, physiological, emotional, socio-cultural, and spiritual) and as a result it should stimulate our various senses. A successful public space is a space that people love to be in and that becomes a place of pride. However, public spaces are often valued differently by different groups of people and different surrounding context. For example, in the CBD area, the city center is so rich with public transport and so dependent on pedestrian movement. People often gather in cafes, on streets, or in plazas. In the suburb, the parks and shopping malls are more popular.

Street, laneway and ordinary public spaces contain a set of unspoken economic values that implicitly drive outcome. Attracting more people, in some standard, means the land value increment, but physical walls and fences isolate most residential area. This separation leads to the lost of interaction from surroundings, which results in big isolated ‘island’.

New York

Paris

Berlin

I started to make a set of physical models with different colours on six cub surfaces represent the various potential functions, and exploring the different ways of connection.

http://www.magicalurbanism.com/wp-content/ uploads/2011/01/netparis.png

The adjacent colours reflected on each other, the inbetween space looks ambiguous. Without the string, every time I manipulate those cubs, they will shape in the different formation. After I pine the strings in the every colour surfaces; the “clutch” will be more stable.

In landscape architecture scenario, what kind of “string” we could use to integrate spaces together? How can we create the space reflect the surrounding demand? Or we just want the city work as spontaneous combination?

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Armelle Caron(French artist) deconstructs cities, identifies fragments, classifies blocks by size and shape. All meaning, memory, void and heritage is kept away by decontextualization.

As landscape architect, it occur to me if there are no social context, connections or interaction between different fragments, there are only meaningless blocks which could be arranged in any order. The following question is can we strengthen the interaction?how the adjacent blocks influent and magnetized each other?

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This event in new york time square turned the road into pedestrian space, however it has to take massive security to maintain a public spectacle and tradition of our cities to gather and celebrate.

Even then, the restaurants around can not provide enough food for travellers. It seems the valid public realm still requires several civil infrastructures, such as adjacent commercial environment and space security. However, do those formations have to be the physical? How can we convey a feeling of safety? If the scale of public space matters, how could small lots of public space function without huge civil investment ? When it shrinks into tiny one, what is the relationship between private and public?

Those art work come from famous artist Jim Lambie, he use brightly coloured vinyl tape arranged into patterns around the floor, tracing the various room to reveal the idiosyncrasies of public space. Those works reminded me that we may not create new space, but we can reclaim and recognize the overlook territory, such as steps, the gallery floor in this case. The connection formation could be physical, visual or even the invisible. When some see you, you probably are in some kind of dynamic network.

Skip Conversions

Pop-up public space / temporary adjacency

In a project called ‘Skip Conversions’, eco-conscious artist Oliver Bishop Young proved that what used to be grimy, unsanitary trash receptacles can be transformed for a myriad of uses including swimming pools, skateboard ramps, gardens and even public toilets. The most fascinating thing for me is not how many different ways to use a dumpster, but each transition activates certain communities and adjacent precinct by fun outdoor activities.

New york time square

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The city only for elites

Most on-street parking in the CBD could be dedicated to new uses – for example a cafe.

Businesses would come up with innovative ways to use these narrow spaces for other purposes.

Temporary shops could take advantage of ground level proximity to pedestrian traffic.

‘Pop-up’ urban planning gives cities the freedom to experimenting with projects on a temporary basis, allowing innovative ideas a trial out without expensive commitment of fundings. Cities around the world are embracing the idea, leading in many cases to permanent changes in the urban landscape. The successes of the idea of pop up public space are based on the idea of “multiple adjacency” and temporary uses.

People replacement/ adjacency of living pattern

The new architectural clutch is a reminder that Shanghai is growing rapidly amid an economic boom and massive migration from the countryside to a global urban center. The growth has pushed ever outward, chopping up poorer neighborhoods and replacing them with more expensive properties. Locals usually cannot afford to buy a new apartment in the same precinct with the lump-sump money, thus they have to move out. At the same time, the middle-class almost spends all their money to buy the apartment in the new high risers. During the transition, the people living in the neighborhood are not the same; the public space dynamically reflects adjacent situations, from diverse people to different events.

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Shanghai, as one of the fastest developing cities in china, faces unprecedented urbanization challenges. The Chinese government, strives to accelerate the urbanization process through city expansion and lowering the threshold for farmers to move into cities. After the farmers come into the city, the most tangible way for them to make a living is be a vendor. They dedicate themselves to hard work with only enough money for food.

Shanghai, as one of the fastest developing cities in china, faces unprecedented urbanization challenges. The Chinese government, strives to accelerate the urbanization process through city expansion and lowering the threshold for farmers to move into cities. After the farmers come into the city, the most tangible way for them to make a living is be a vendor. They dedicate themselves to hard work with only enough money for food.

The ban has come under heavy criticism that it deprives the street vendors of their right to make a living.

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vendors

Design exploration

The site where I choose to exam my idea is a industrail land near Suzhou River. It is a new developing prescient, and the old factories are doom to be erased If the high risers come, I am thinking whether they can be rearranged base on: smaller blocks, mix-used land, dynamic aggregation, and temporary vendors.

My design strategy organizes a network of small open spaces that establish physical and visual connections with the surrounding context, while integrating all vendors in the development. The open spaces present a sequence of specially designed vendor space where the community will find a place for gathering, enjoyment, and informal exchange. From this lens, I am exploring how the vendors drive the development outcome.

Twenty years ago, there was at least one food stall or community serving vendor located in the entrance of each lane - those were the days of cozy lanes but most are long gone and breakfast stalls are getting scarce as well until they are banned in the new regulation.

Safety, congestion, economic vitality and community severance can be effectively tackled in the entrance of ‘linong’, the vendors not only manage and control traffic access but aslo monitor the security in the whole lane. Usually, the vendors have know buyers for many years, they beileve with each other.The place accommodates interactive human activity and fully integrated with private and public space, not separated from it.

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With the new strategy beginning to shift from car orientation planning, provision for pedestrian and bicycle access is key to encouraging people interactive in urban development.

Walkability is increasingly valued for a variety of reasons. Not only does pedestrian transportation reduce congestion and have low environmental impact, it has social and recreational value.

URBAN ARTERY PUBLIC REDUCE

MAIN ALLEY SECONDARY ALLEY UNIT SHARED SPACE

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vendors

The vendors could also share responsibility for security, they dynamically engage with a range of public space and communities. Where the vendors want to settle depends on their type and potential customers. For example, the breakfast stall always located near the bus stop, and shoes preparing vendors likes the intimate and quiet backstreet near their familiar communities.

For the profit concern, I keep the same density with surrounding residential parcels.

Simple and small grid services better for vendors, who are sensitive with pedestrian access. Walkable neighborhoods integrate with small commercial space benefits the community.

The following question is: what is the group size only for communities with a very high incentive to remain together? What is the size of intimate space share by communities? Considering the vendor serving scope and walking radius, what is the spatial scale for them to serve the residents. I design the architecture envelopes to shape the various community open space and enclosed spaces. The gardens, shops, entertainment and parking podiums are integrated with the dispersed vendors, creating a partnership between pedestrian and vendor network. The mixed-use spaces are empowered to accommodate social events within the district.

The dynamic people activates is the force to generate different size of public domain.

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What do the vendor need?

Smallware peddler

Breakfast/Noodle Stall

I am going to exam if Chinese alleyway living mode could be interpreted into modern residential clutches by redesigning of a series of contemporary vendor space.

Snack peddler

confined semi-public space simulation The first idea is mimic the longtang’s allay with confined structure corridor. The narrow channel is a place for residents to encounter others. The structure could not only provide shelter for the vendors but also engender community meeting point. People could reclaim their space by locating their personal belongings over there. Will that be a trigger of semi-public space? Will the vendor block the corridor?

How can we manage them by arranging the space? How can we program the event for the locals get involved with?

Bicycle Repair Siding

Street Bookstall

Flower Girl

Ingle fire

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m

5m

Fresh Water

Light

shelter

Trash Bin

pedicab / Tricycle

BBQ Table & Benches

Coffee

Street Dinning Table

Closestool

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0m

10

0m

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Hanging cloth in public

Winter

Hanging cloth in public

A slice of verge garden goes long with this bamboo structure, various vegetables, such as cucumbers, cowpeas, are rooted in the soil and use this bamboo structure to climb up to block the sunshine in the summer. Taking responsibility for the verge garden and managing vendors provides a new means for people to engagement.

Summer

Those clothes are exposed to public eyes. Whatever they were living in the longtang or they have moved into the apartment, hanging laundry out of their room is a pretty normal thing but not something we want to show the rest of the world as it could hurt the Shanghai Image.

In April, before the start of the Shanghai World Expo, authorities issued an edict banning the practice of hanging clothes out to dry, along with other practices deemed “uncivilized,� such as spitting, jaywalking and wearing pajamas in public. Locals appeared to heed the new edicts - but hanging up laundry proved too deeply ingrained a habit to give up.

Public space is often viewed as the sole responsibility of local government. Citizens always make minimal use of the space and often feel no responsibility for its care.

Hanging laundries in the neighborhood reflect how the individual reclaim their territory and engage with public space.

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Management the elements Infrastructure requirement

When we see cement , bitumen, gravel or grass, the function of this lot have been reflected in our mind, is there a material for the vendors on the land? If we name and shape the certain paving, will that restrict the way of occupying space for vendors and help buyers recognize the spot?

Shanghainese still awake to the mouth-watering smells of deep-fried dough sticks, assorted dumplings, pancakes and rice balls, but the most breakfast stall cause environment problem, the surrounding vegetation need ability to survive from the smock.

image come from:http://gammanine.wordpress.com/2011/05/12/ g9-travel-guide-shanghai-food/

Yarn bombing reclaimed and personalized sterile or cold public places by graffiti knitting. The exploration of different ways of claiming space helped me to step back to rethink the old relationship between alleyway living and vendors. The formation for both modern residential and vendors’ space have been changed tremendously, is there any new strategy?

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Negotiation with surroundings

A-1

600

B-1

Operation space

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1200

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B-2

3000

A-3

B-3

600

The water storage, air pollution, vegetation selection need be sensitively reconsidered in the context. I am trying various approaches to adjust the appropriate distance from street trees, and reshape the landform to collect the water into the rain garden nearby.

1800

1200 3000

B-4

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Parking Day/ User-Generated Urbanism

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Public space in transition

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0021

Tree, shrub, ornamental flowers and grass encircle the vendor-friendly space.

Both lawn and shaded seating areas are expected to accommodate more people. The ordinary park will be thrill when every one comes to buy the breakfast in the morning, and in the afternoon, it turn into a quiet corner.

PARK(ing) Day is a annual open-source global event where citizens, artists and activists collaborate to temporarily transform metered parking spaces into “PARK(ing)� spaces: temporary public places. The project began in 2005 when Rebar, a San Francisco art and design studio, converted a single metered parking space into a temporary public park in downtown San Francisco. The PARK(ing) Day actually calls attention to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat.

0003

Even the most crowed residential zone on site, there are till a slice of lawn and small collection of gardens. We do not need to convert the concrete surface into lawn, but how to manipulate existing vegetation to benefit the residents and vendors?

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Participation and familiarity I attempt to consider basic need from a customer’s perspective: Without the expensive rent for the vendors, it means the price of conventional food will be cheaper. They can enjoy their traditional breakfast in the garden in the morning and in the afternoon the space fully come back into garden without disturbing. This kind of dense, mixed-use, people-oriented vendor space easily meets everyone’s desire.

Parents choose park to be a match making place simply because they familiar with the place, where they will go exercise everyday. They make friends and build personal connection over there. I past the street near my apartment millions times, the familiarity does not grow in my mind. What kind of space will be ‘ours’? How can I make those alien spaces back into our life?

When the people come to buy food, they will interact with the vendors and each other.

Everyday routine get the neighborhood involved in the space. Unconsciously, when people participate in this event, they will activate the public sphere.

Maximum exposure in public

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Shared space

People come to the hub with different purpose, they may want to find the information on the board, checking headline on Internet, talking with friends,or repair the bicycles.

How can they not feel being disturbed by others when they share the space closely?

In most Chinese cities, it is illegal for individuals to just get out on the streets, set up a stand and sell stuff, because the city government says they block roads, cause traffic jam and create lots of trash, compromising the government’s efforts to beautify the city and improve traffic. Occasionally one can still find street side shoe cobblers, bicycle repair or similar services. As with the street food, the price for services is very reasonable.

Repairing bicycle on the street is a meeting place for the people share the same interest. I am building the community hub integrate with match make and bicycle repair functions in respond to creating the walkable neighborhood.

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Street Landscape

If the vendors preform in the regular time and place, ground sign on the street will be the clue for finding the stalls. The main street landscape will be influenced correspondingly by the network program, which are intend to guide people into activated the public space.

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Rethink the road is an experiment of designing people movement, not attempting to please everyone in but creating a variety of corridors that will appeal different people at different times.

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Public accessibility

Ownership

Accessibility is an important precondition for many of the cultural events and other activities organized by temporary users. The necessary improvements to pedestrian and cycle access on site were either absent or vague.

In the precedent of Seattle Olympic park, my interest is observing how the designers (Weiss/Manfredi) integrate those urban fragments on an industrial site, which have been partitioned and restricted by traffic lines and water edge.

Furthermore, above the distinct parceled lots, by overlapping a new public space to redefine the land function without any interruption against excising transportation system.

semi-private? semi-public?

Claim private in public

Connections through vertical layers and horizontal boundaries allowed the pedestrian space interact with transportation, waterfront, and postindustrial land in a new assembled

image come frome:http://keithlyons. wordpress.com/2009/12/30/yarn-bombing-a-christmas-treat/

place.

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Urban open spaces are commonly open to public access, however, they may be privately owned, and thus even public apace may only function on private time schedule. Streets, piazzas, plazas and urban squares are not always defined as urban open spaces in land use planning depend on the ownership.

In the old longtang, the bystreet were shared by residents, they reclaimed their space by hanging Landry, install kitchen and put their stuff in the shared public space. The implicate approach to occupy space have been accepted by the locals. The space functioned efficiently although the ownership was vague and ambiguous.

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When most suburban community in Australia concern weather sharing our backyards with neighbors is pushing the notion of mateship just a little too far, the people live in shanghai shared every inch of their precious public space. When they move in to spacious mordent apartment, every land is entitled under clear ownership. Ground level apartments include a small private garden, which are isolated by walls and fences.

One hand, these physical subdivisions undermine the possibility of sharing space in residential district. On the other hand, the diverse individualized gardens are more interesting and delightful.

When I design the lawn as part of gathering space, the problem is majority of Chinese have been told, “Do not step on the grass� for many years. Although western imported grass could survive from urban compact soil, getting away from lawn has been part of their culture.

As landscape architect, how can we encourage people involve in the green space? If they owned the grass, will they touch it, feel it and step on it? Can people be entitled to do that without following any public rules?

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Degree of publicness

Urban street Exposed places will encourage public interaction, whereas enclosed spaces will enable more intimate social interactions. Both of these models are important for a city since they satisfy people’s basic needs for public or intimate social encounters, and even enable a form of urban escapism. In longtang, various lanes, alleys formed different degree of public space, from full Exposed places to enclosed spaces, based on the scale, accessibility, ownership, and functionality.

Entrance Lane Main Lane Sub Lane

Front courtyard

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Partnership of public and private

When you look at a city, It’s like reading the hopes, aspirations and pride of everyone who build it.

Ambiguous boundary

--- Hugh Newell Jacobsen

“Play Me, I’m yours” is an artwork by British artist Luke Jerram. Over 400 pianos have now been installed in cities across the globe, from New York to Sydney, bearing the simple instruction ‘Play Me, I’m Yours’. The idea is inviting the public to engage with, activate and take ownership of their urban environment. Actually, it works; people really talk with the strangers. It reminder me different events may require various public spaces base on the degree of the public exposure.

SEMI-PUBLIC OR SEMI-PRIVATE public

private

The old Chinese life style seem to live on their streets to a much greater extent than do Westerners, and the subtle progression from public through semi-public/semiprivate to private that took place in the alleyways between the houses and fences ideally suited their daily life, however this kind of ambiguous space and unique city typology are vanishing with the their vernacular convenient lifeway.

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The street used to be the boundary of private and public in longtang.it was essentially ambiguous because residents and vendors extend and occupied space on the street, the boundary is simultaneously part of the public and private spheres.

In the old 7 storages building, many people turned their private garden into small groceries and sell product to the neighbors through the fence.is that means the real obstacle of vibrant city is not the fence?

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Space interaction

public

occupied space

private

public

private

Can we activate the public space by encouraging individual to reclaim a piece of public space? And how?

public

occupied space

private

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Much of the vaunted “publicprivate partnership” of today amounts to a subsidy for affluent consumers, corporations, and powerful command functions to stay in town at the expense of local collective consumption for the working class and the impoverished. But these kinds of home shop sell groceries to their neighbours in reasonable price.

In the work of eight contemporary architects 2 Venturi, Complexity and Contradiction in Architecture, pp. 22~23

The apartment on the ground floor can easily be converted into shops and groceries.

Base on the observation, the interface in between of buildings and streets are ambiguous. The public space could be activated when people temporary occupied and shared the space. What is our position when we are going to narrative this spatial ambiguity back in contemporary urban pattern? Venturi confess his perspective as a architect, he says: ‘I like elements which are hybrid rather than “pure,” compromising rather than “clean,” distorted rather than “straightforward,” ambiguous rather than “articulated,” perverse as well as impersonal, boring as well as “interesting,” conventional rather than “designed,” accommodating rather than excluding, redundant rather than simple, vestigial as well as innovating, inconsistent and equivocal rather than direct and clear. I am for messy vitality over obvious unity. I include the non sequitur and proclaim the duality.’

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design exploration II

The conventional urban planning haven been challenged by an emphasis on the Ordinary Life in the City. My design strategy builds on the observation of daily routines, activities, and behaviours through different events. The spontaneous urbanisms merge and disperse correspondingly by individuals’ participation beyond the boundaries of ownership and functionality.

Correspondingly, this leads to a dynamic public space network that evolves activities occur within a neighbourhood. With the people movement, the existing ordinary places are encouraged to be thriving. I argued the highly flexible public space should be the cooperation of public and private, temporary and permanent, ambiguous and articulate.

In the first design exploration, I attempt to rearrange the building envelopes to create enclosed space and exam if the intimate public space could incentive the community to stay together. However, architectures might not appear to be in control of forming intimate space when the high risers stay away from each other due to overshadow.

This round, I try to manipulate vegetation to reinforce the enclosed space in human scale. Massive green space in residential zone is entitled to be occupied by smaller communities, neighborhood and even individual. Rather than top-down zoning dropped from map, my approach is to set up a combination of shared small-scale land uses such as small businesses at major intersections, home offices, and street vending in various space, from full access public, community shared public, neighbourhood public to private owed public.The multiple land mixture limits the increments of development, keep the commute distance short and encourage a more sustainable and compact city.

Master plan

Making places that nurture small entrepreneurs, those individual reclaimed spaces can be a driving force for change and innovation—rather than top-down planning and capital-intensive approaches.

Private owed public

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Space subdivision

Lawn event

Neighbourhood public

Neighbourhood public

Street public

Street public

Community shared public

Community shared public

Full access public Full access public

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Failure

I try to form the space involved with tress and shrubs, but this permanent structure lost the ability to transform, mobile and share. The following process, I am clearer about how to critic the design within my whole framework.

Engage with landscape

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Spatiality

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C

B

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section

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Privacy protection

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pop-up platform

Roots protection

I design the pop-up platform to exam how the small temporary individualized space could work in a loose framework that holds it all together. This rich mixture of structured and unstructured physical spatial forms fits dynamic events. The public space will be personalized when different group people occupied the platform. By encouraging individual to claim spaces in public, the space functioned under their own will. During constant space transition, the boundary of public and private domain blurred. The temporary public spaces are intrigued by re-purposed space activities in different time schedule. Interactions take place under various occasions and events.

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Conclusion Most Chinese metropolitan centers find their identity by researching city history, but Shanghai’s urban history is less than two hundred years. The city is assembled by migrations, their new residents have described Shanghai as dreamscape more than a decade, in the sense that it is no longer just a city, but stands for a desirable lifestyle.

Shanghai is a city of profound ambiguity and many contradictions. I am exploring the way to polish the ambiguous city identity by providing the context- appreciated public space in mordent urban fabric to accommodate local lifestyle. The question is will new generation reflect their parent’s lifestyle? If not, what are the ‘Better Cities’ and a ‘Better Life’ for them?

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