Common Frameworks: Xiamen
Final Review
December 11th, 2012 Harvard Graduate School of Design
Presentation Order
Morning Session Introduction
10.00
Xiamen as Green Archipelago Sonja Cheng, Waqas Jawaid
10.15
The Two Sides Yu Ta Lin
11.00
The City Room Michael Leef, Ryan Otterson
11.45
Afternoon Session Introduction
2.00
The Collective Perimeter Aanya Chugh, Lik Hang Gu
2.15
The Urban Sift: Exacerbated Proximities John Martin Tubles, Jonghyun Yi
3.00
Sequencing Xiamen Ryley Poblete
3.45
Production of Nature: Reframing Xiamen Matthew Scarlett, Jisoo Yang
4.30
2.
1.
Xiamen Island
Site 1: Yuandong Lake Site 2: Liang Ann Financial District
Common Frameworks Rethinking the Developmental City
This studio works typologically. It approaches the problem of the city through the investigation and redefinition of its persistent architectures - its dominant types. Any attempt to define type is an attempt to define what is typical; and what is most typical is common to all. As such, type lends itself as an effective heuristic device to locate commonalities. This search for what is common in architecture is not to locate formal or tectonic similitude, but a search for what is the idea that can be commonly held so as to invest architecture with a social and political role.
public sphere. This dissolution into a sea of enclave urbanism does not constitute the idea of the city; either in the European tradition as a space of partnership or coexistence, or in the Chinese sense, where the city is a seen as an accommodative framework with a clear and legible deep structure that regulates its spaces and social structure. Therefore, the task for the studio is to conceive of and design a common framework for the city, accommodating housing, work space, nature and another associative civic function.
1. The Developmental City
Varying between four hectares in urban areas and forty hectares in city peripheries, the mega-plot is an efficient planning apparatus that allows the state to urbanize in quick pace by shifting the investment required for infrastructure to developers, for the former only constructs widely spaced infrastructure, leaving the latter to provide for infrastructure within the plot. This mega-plot is the basic parcellation of
The studio’s seeks to rethink the developmental city, defined as the city conceived and constructed through mega-plots, and used primarily as a developmental tool, instigated primarily by speculative capital. The urbanization of these mega-plots result in the dissolution of the city as a legible artifact, bereft of a civic dimension and
2. The Mega-plot
masterplans represented by landuse colour patches served by large scale infrastructure. Its lack of architectural and spatial attributes makes it highly efficient for planning and land transaction. It requires tabula rasa as a precondition for speed and freedom of development favored by speculative developers. Within the mega-plots, buildings are regulated by planning parameters that result in free standing towers in large unconsolidated open spaces or colossal super blocks as housing developments; either in gated communities as luxury developments or unrelenting monotonous rubber stamped blocks in cheaper version. What is lost is the idea of the city as a common space par excellence. 3. Xiamen Our impression of Xiamen can be summarized into four distinct ideas of the city: the city as an archipelago, the city of juxtaposed dominant types, the city of geopolitical assertion and the city of the mega-plot.
The city as an archipelago exists on both scales: the geographical scale where the city as an island defines its character through its separation and physical limit for development. A scale down, the growth of the city creates a uniform sea of urbanization that isolates and defines islands of nature in the form of the hills in Xiamen. The physical structure of Xiamen can be defined by the juxtaposition of three dominant types: the Qilou, the village types and the highrise type. This juxtaposition marks not only the historical moments of urbanization but also bear specific organizational characteristics that are social, cultural and political. The geopolitics of the region also manifests itself in the physical development of the city. Growth in specific areas in the island is deliberately stunted or accelerated according to political expediency, resulting in an uneven spatial development. The city in this manner is an index of power relations par excellence. The city of the mega-plot is the
most ubiquitous. A sea of generic highrise tower blocks enveloping most of the hinterland of Xiamen. 4. Project Sites The two selected sites are chosen to coincide with the city’s larger developmental strategy of creating a ring of centers connecting the island of Xiamen to its hinterland. This two centers, located on the south west and north east tip of the island is aligned to the developmental arc of the larger metropolitan area. Site 1: Yuandong Lake The site is the administrative heart of Xiamen. It is currently the site of much redevelopment as it will be one of two centres on the main island according to the latest masterplan for the city. It is adjacent to the old centre of Xiamen and is currently the centre of government, culture, and business for the city. The Island itself can be thought of as the condition of Xiamen in miniature. It is situated in the centre
of a vast and sprawling hinterland, yet is given definition and hard boundaries by the water. It is well connected to the mainland yet sits unmoored in the city, not quite apart of it, a island within and island. Site 2: Liang Ann Financial District The site is situated in the eastern part of the island and forms part of what is considered the new centre in the east. This area of the city is being developed along the lines of the typical developmental city in China, large megaplots parcelled out from random districts which are given banal names. Our site is called the “Lakeside Business Centre” which is part of the “Lakeside Reservoir District”. It is a new Central Business District for Xiamen. If the other site can be defined by its geographical and contextual specificity, this site can be defined by its very generic- ness. It is a rectangular plot bounded on all sides with roads and the stipulated setbacks. The adjacent plots will not relate to this sites’ urban design and this site will not relate to
them. The image of the city is pure fiction purely intended to build political support and developer involvement into the scheme. 5. Common Frameworks for Xiamen The studio proposes seven common frameworks for the city of Xiamen. The common framework can be defined as the deep structure of the city that embodies the space of coexistence. This accommodative framework promotes inclusivity through exacerbating difference. It is a position that insists that a certain degree of control, through architecture, is necessary to cultivate meaningful difference - a recognition that the city is first and foremost a space of plurality. The common frameworks here achieves this through their ability to frame, absorb, sequence, mark, enclose, layer, limit, separate, compress and imprint.
6. Dominant types for the city In our attempt to create these common frameworks, we identified key architectural projects that hold the potential to act as structuring elements of the city. The deep structure of these projects are identified and abstracted for their ability to act as city rooms, armatures, punctuators, plinths, mats and walls. 7. The architecture of landscape Likewise, landscape here is thought of not in opposition to the city, to be subjugated but for its organizational potential, nor to replace architecture. It is thought of and envisioned as structuring elements for the city. This presents a conception of landscape and architecture that is mutually involved, as binary opposites that are constantly in alternation, an equilibrium of opposing forces.
Above: The city as an archipelago Below: The city of geopolitical assertion
Above: The city of the mega-plot Below: The city of juxtaposed dominant types
Xiamen as Green Archipelago Sonja Cheng, MArch I Waqas Jawaid, MArch I
“Elsewhere, we place gardens in cities. Xiamen is a city created within a garden.� Painted with poetic passion, this simple yet provocative image from a Xiamen University professor left an indelible impression on our minds. We posit that in its idealized conception Xiamen is an urban archipelago with islands of dense development nestled in a sea of green. However, Xiamen is quickly losing this precious quality due to the relentless construction of towers by private developers. The current method of mega-plot urbanization in China has resulted in large homogenous developments without much green space or civic program. We wish to infuse the existing developmental framework of Xiamen---one characterized by speed and efficiency of large-scale construction---with simple paradigmatic ideas that allow for heterogeneity and a regeneration of city life.
Our project begins with a grid of civic program---library, fitness, restaurant, entertainment, etc---organized in linear strips. Each civic program is paired with a specific landscape condition. We then carve out spaces for living, working, and commerce. These exist as urban islands, each one a moment of exacerbated difference providing spaces that inspire varying degrees of collaboration. Each island has a distinct type of architecture and each of these types is designed through a careful analysis of existing common types found within Xiamen itself. In a way, then, we are creating a microcosm of the ideal Xiamen on our megaplot. It re-imagines how people live and work by bringing all the heterogenous vitality of the city within walking distance. It also serves as a prototype for future development in Xiamen in a way that preserves and amplifies Xiamen’s essence: a city created within a garden.
The Two Sides (and One Common Framework) Yu Ta Lin, MAUD
The project is situated in the CBD site of east Xiamen. Architecturally, it rethinks the space for mixing working, living, and cooperation through manipulating the urban dominant type- Qilou. From the social point of view, the project is also the manifestation of the political circumstance between Xiamen (China) and Kinmen (Taiwan). The original park proposed by HOK cuts the site into two halves. As the interpretation of shop houses in macro scale, two rolls of residential bars, which situated in between HOK buildings from each side, stretched inward and divided existing fabric into different urban pockets, leaving a large void space on ground level. The circular shape of the void area creates a superficial symbol of unification. The office units are scattered in the circular
void area. Each office unit consists of an exterior space, a transitional corridor space, an interior space, and a shared space in the back. This is another interpretation of the shop house. Considering the issue of CrossStrait cooperation, the project argues against the sameness of conventional CBD and the notion of unification. Though its architecture creates an absolute and trans-scaling generic common framework for the entire site, the use of different landscape and variations in accessibility creates a softness and programmatic difference between the two sides. Within the common framework, the two sides interact. Yet through acknowledging and respecting the differences, the two sides gain benefits without decreasing their own values. That is the essence of cooperation.
The City Room Michael Leef, MArch II Ryan Otterson, MArch II
This project speculates about the possibilities of the city room in the Megaplot in Xiamen. The chosen site is for a future CBD. The planned CBD is what Koolhaas calls “an articulation of momentary financial legitimacy”; not a city, but a space of urbanization where the richness of the city is lost. We have chosen to insert a proposal into the center of the CBD as an intervention in contrast to the surrounding high-rise towers of megaplot development. Maki states that a City Room
is a momentary capture of the continuous flow of the city. In Xiamen, the flow of the city is outdoors; what is “urban” must be close to nature. The project critiques the highly manicured and unsuccessful outdoor spaces of Megaplot development by taking them to an extreme condition and using a fabric of outdoor city rooms to “capture” the flows of the city. These captures are defined by a porous umbrella of living quarters and thin walls of program.
The Collective Perimeter Aanya Chugh, MArch I Lik Hang Gu, MArch I
The typical pattern of development seen in Chief Business Districts suggests that urban centers must be characterized by central density and outward expansion. The Collective Perimeter negates these assumptions through redeploying the circular logic of the Fujian Tulou house at an urban scale. Rather than accommodating a dense and vertical center, low rise housing and commercial spaces collectively frame a vast expanse of park space. The crenulated perimeter that encompasses this void introduces an exception to the gridded parceling of the megaplot. This allows for alternative types of densification to occur. In this type, development is possible within the
perimeter itself. This pliable framework can accommodate both housing and commercial space in the same continuous structure. Although the spaces of housing are private and inward, they become public through flipping outward when transitioning to office space. This geometric inversion similarly occurs at the ground plane; where the public landscape surrounding the perimeter gently slopes down to encourage collection. In contrast, the spaces of housing are built up in order to suggest a realm of private space. Through this geometric inversion of convexity and concavity in plan, the form plays with the perception of what is perceived as individual versus collective space.
The Urban Sift: Exacerbated Proximities John Martin Tubles, MArch II Jonghyun Yi, MArch II
The mega plot is an efficient mechanism for rapid urban development yet it alters the notion of the city as we know it, removing its socio-political dimension and commonality. In China, generic high-rise towers that populate large plots of land are replacing the intricate and densely rich urban fabric. This approach to urban design creates objects within a field that stand as an emblematic reminder of economic success, power and modernity. However these towers create a fragmented ground condition that does not relate to its context thus creating large urban islands. Our project is a critique on the mega plot’s autonomous relationship with the city. By
highlighting the posture of intimacy, fineness and specificity, we propose a series of wall blocks that create an egalitarian mat condition throughout the field to create a new porous space on the ground, a screen of vitality. The configuration and relationship of the individual buildings organize the interstitial spaces between, creating a series of thresholds, pocket parks and civic programs. Our project rejects the dominant structures of the mega plot by inserting it into its center. This idea of re-scaling of the city leads to the creation of an urban sift slowing down the speed, defining moments, and overcoming the boundaries created by the mega plot.
Sequencing Xiamen Ryley Poblete, MArch II
In the development of Xiamen there have been four phases which have defined the relationship of public and communal space. They are: The mat, The Enclave, The Micro Region, and The Highrise City. Each of these phases experienced a progressive erosion the fabric of the city by the continuous dilution of it’s sequential experience. Xiamen’s palimpsest origin stems from the dichotomy of the alley and the lane. This dichotomy was formed by the relationship of the shophouse (shoujinliao) to the courtyard house and their relationship to self similar elements. These elements were experienced sequentially. One would transition from public street to semi-public shop and transition to communal alley. As the city developed, this relationship was replaced by a hard definition of the city’s served and serviced spaces. This relationship was defined by the inward orientation of developments represented by the Danwei. Today however this is most clearly defined through the city’s emphasis on infrastructure as a definitive
element in planning which divides parcels to make them financially viable for the market. The development of these spaces are thus void of the spatial experience, which defined the city’s past. In order to revive these sequential moments within the fabric of the city my project strives to transition the megaplot into a mediating force within the fabric of the city. This is achieved through the division of the site into a series of rooms. These are differentiated programmatically, topologically, botanically, and hydrologically. In order to give sequence and create a connective fabric to the site, a mat condition is created through the abstraction of the lang from the SiHeYuan. This Lang then becomes a connective programmatic space, which plays host to the insertion of the housing along residential programmatic strips. The result is a space which seeks to mediate between disparate elements of the city, internally creating a series of hierarchical spaces that are transitioned sequentially to revive the city’s vivid historical ordering.
The Production of Nature: Reframing Xiamen Matthew Scarlett, MArch II Jisoo Yang, MAUD
Xiamen presents a unique example of one of China’s developing frontier cities, in large part due to the city planning department’s commitment to preserving and expanding green space. While this is ostensibly an admirable quality, this project seeks to break from the existing paradigm of development in Xiamen which tends to reduce landscape to a palliative component; its primary purpose aimed at softening the experience of rapid urbanization. According to this mode of development, landscape is often subjugated to the flows of capital and condemned to the interstitial space between buildings within the megaplot. This leads to a perception of Xiamen as a “city in a park,” the implication of which is that landscape is a continuous field condition that proliferates endlessly. Through a framework of limits and juxtaposition, this project runs counter to predominate notions of capitalist development and seeks to reorient landscape in Xiamen towards the experience of the event. In other words, it seeks to develop the condition of a “park in a city.” To do this
it draws upon established architectural typologies in China including the courtyard house, the lane house, and the shop house; all of which present examples of architecture and outdoor space conceived within a mutually reinforcing framework. In this project, architecture frames landscape at various scales and orientations to inform the experience of three different types; the garden, the productive landscape, and utopian nature. The juxtaposition within the organization of the landscape and the general experience of the urban realm are made more meaningful through the presence of a common and absolute architectural framework. Furthermore, while accommodating the diverse programmatic elements of the CBD this project rejects the emphasis placed upon FAR as a calculation of productive space and embraces Xiamen’s hospital climate as an incredible asset that has the potential to provide for a new conception of work space in China; one that more closely suites the habits of the knowledge worker.
Invited Critics
Inaki Abalos is the Jean Labatute Professor and Kenzo Tange Professor in Harvard University. From 1984 to 2007 he was founder partner together with Juan Herreros of Spanish firm Abalos&Herreros. Since 2007 he has managed his own office, Abalos arquitectos, and collaborates with Renata Sentkiewicz (Abalos + Sentkiewicz arquitectos). Neil Brenner is Professor of Urban Theory at the Harvard Graduate School of Design (GSD) and the coordinator of the newly founded Urban Theory Lab GSD. He previously served as Professor of Sociology and Metropolitan Studies, and as an affiliated faculty member of the American Studies Program, at New York University. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Chicago (1999); an MA in Geography from UCLA (1996); and a BA in Philosophy, Summa Cum Laude, from Yale College (1991). Sean Chiao is the Executive Vice President of AECOM in China. He is
an advocate of AECOM’s collaborative vision and leads their multidisciplinary experts into partnerships wih local and provincial governments in China to help steer their growth plans across the region. He has been a visiting professor at Tsinghua University and has lectured and given seminars at many universities across China and Taiwan. He holds a Master of Architecture in Urban Design degree from Harvard University and a Master of Architecture degree from University of California, Berkeley. He is a member of the AIA, ASLA and is on the executive committee of ULI Asia and the Hong Kong Green Building Council. Felipe Correa is Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Planning and Design and Director of the Urban Design Degree Program. A New Yorkbased architect and urbanist, his most recent research focuses on resource extraction models within the South American continent and the diverse models of urbanization these have enabled.
Alexander D’Hooghe is associate professor with tenure at MIT and founding partner of the ‘Organization for Permanent Modernity’, a professional firm and think tank for urbanism and architecture, with locations in Boston and Brussels. Currently, he also directs the MIT Center for Advanced Urbanism at MIT, focused on largescale contemporary design problems. He has published internationally, notably with ‘the Liberal Monument’ (Princeton, Fall 2010). Eric Howeler is Assistant Professor of Architecture. He teaches in the core studio sequence and offers courses in other areas, including building assemblies. Höweler was born in Cali, Colombia and received his degrees, Bachelor of Architecture and Masters of Architecture, from Cornell University. He is a principal of Höweler + Yoon Architecture LLP. Liu Hung-Chih is the Principal and Regional Managing Director of Design, Planning and Economics in Chi-
na for Aecom. After graduating from Harvard University’s Graduate School of Design he has worked extensively throughout North America and China. He has directed design efforts that specialize in high-density urban projects of various types and scale, implementing numerous renowned plans through integrating architecture, landscape, environmental as well as economic planning task forces with innovative approaches. Florian Idenburg is Adjunct Associate Professor of Architecture. He is the founding partner of SO – IL, an internationally acclaimed architecture studio based in New York. Nancy Lin is the Regional Managing Director, for Planning, Design and Development in Hong Kong for AECOM. She holds a Masters in Architecture degree from Harvard’s Graduate School of Design and a BSE in Civi Engineering and Architecture from Princeton University. She has worked extensively throughout Chin on archi-
tectural, urban design, planning and landscape projects. Rahul Mehrotra is Professor of Urban Design and Planning and Chair of the Department of Urban Planning and Design. He is a practicing architect, urban designer, and educator. His firm, RMA Architects, was founded in 1990 in Mumbai and has designed and executed projects for clients that include government and non-governmental agencies, corporate as well as private individuals and institutions. RMA Architects has also initiated several unsolicited projects driven by the firm’s commitment to advocacy in the city of Mumbai. Mohsen Mostafavi, an architect and educator, is the Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Design and the Alexander and Victoria Wiley Professor of Design. He was formerly the Gale and Ira Drukier Dean of the College of Architecture, Art and Planning at Cornell University where he was also the Arthur L. and Isabel B. Wiesenberger
Professor in Architecture. Previously, he was the Chairman of the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London. Joan Ockman is Distinguished Senior Fellow in the School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania. She taught from 1985 to 2008 at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. She began her career at the Institute for Architecture and Urban Studies in New York, where she was an editor of Oppositions journal and the Oppositions Books series. Her writing and research focus on the history, theory, and culture of modern and contemporary architecture. Hashim Sarkis is the Aga Khan Professor of Landscape Architecture and Urbanism in Muslim Societies. He teaches courses in the history and theory of architecture, such as Practices in Democracy, Constructing Vision: A History and Theory of Perspective’s Applications in Architecture, Develop-
ing Worlds: Planning and Design in the Middle East and Latin America After WWII, and Green Modern: A History of Environmental Consciousness in Architecture from Patrick Geddes to the Present. Renata Sentkiewicz is the founder and director of Ábalos+Sentkiewicz arquitectos. She is a Design Critic at the GSD, Adjunct Professor in BIArch (Barcelona), Associate Professor of Architectural Project Design at the ETSAM and has been a Professor of the Laboratorio de Técnicas y Paisajes Contemporáneos since 2002. She is also a member of the Zero Energy Alliance (since 2009). Charles Waldheim is the John E. Irving Professor of Landscape Architecture and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture. He teaches design studios at the intersection of landscape and contemporary urbanism. Previously, Waldheim was Associate Professor and Director of the Landscape Architecture program at
the University of Toronto. He is an honorary member of the Ontario Association of Landscape Architects, and in 2006 was recipient of the Rome Prize Fellowship in Landscape Architecture at the American Academy in Rome. Zhao Yanjing is the Director of the Xiamen Planning Bureau. He graduated from Chongqing University and gained his doctorate from the Planning and Geography School at Cardiff University, United Kingdom. Since 1984 Mr. Zhao served at the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design and has acted as director of it’s Xiamen branch as well as it’s as vice chief planner. He was in charge of the Guangzhou Development Conceptual Planning, Shenzhen Urban Development Strategic Consulting Report, Xiamen Urban Masterplan. He is widely known as a senior urban planner in its field and is an editor of Urban Planning Magazine and a member of the council of the Urban Planning Society of China.
Studio Master: Chris Lee Teaching Associate: Simon Whittle We would like to thank the following for their generous contribution of time and knowledge:
Inaki Abalos Wang Ande Neil Brenner Sean Chiao Felipe Correa Alexander D’Hooghe Ling Fan Siewshyan Foo Eva Gu Eric Howeler Wang Hui Liu Hung Chih Florian Idenburg Beth Kramer Shen Lei Nancy Lin
The studio is made possible by the generous support of AECOM.
Wang Lin James Lu Rahul Mehrotra Mohsen Mostafavi Joan Ockman Ben Prosky Peter Rowe Renata Sentkiewicz Eddie Tsui Charles Waldheim Bing Wang Sarah Wang Zhang Wenhua Minda Xu Zhao Yanjing Jianfei Zhu