Theories of Architecture and Urbanism - comparative analysis essay

Theories of Architecture and Urbanism [ARC 61303]

Project Part 2: Comparative Analysis Essay

Tutor: Mr. Nicholas Ng Lai Yik Xin 0323388

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1.0 Introduction Dashilar District is located at the South of Tiananmen Square and West of Qianmen Street, Beijing, China. Dashilar is not only one of the most ancient and famous district in Beijing but also the center of commercial and entertainment of Beijing during Ming and Qing Dynasties. With a history of more than 500 hundred years, there are a lot of hutongs which are the old narrow lanes that are rich in culture and history of Beijing. Hutongs are varied in directions and the alleys are crossing and interconnecting each other. It is famous with its neighbourhood lifestyle which are the important factors that we are going to discuss in this comparative essay in relation to the theory of Jan Gehl, “Life between Buildings�. The selected streets are the Yingtao and Tieshu Byways which are the important and famous streets in Dashilar. These byways are following a northeast-southwest axis, along this axis are mostly hotels, bathhouses, shops and residential area.

The other selected street to be compared with Yingtao and Tieshu Byways, Beijing is Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman (Jalan TAR), Kuala Lumpur which is the site for the Studio Project. Jalan TAR was known for its fashion mall in Kuala Lumpur in the days before modern shopping complexes took over its place. There are a lot of shops offer a wide range of textile, clothes, carpets, bags, luggage and so on along Jalan TAR. Some of the shophouses along Jalan TAR are well preserved and readapted to accommodate modern retailing business while some of the building are demolished and built into higher stories.

The main focus of this essay is to study and compare the lifestyle, pattern of social activities, types of contact points and its intensity between Yingtao and Tieshu Byways with Jalan TAR.

Yingtao Byway

Tieshu Byway

Jalan TAR

Figure 1.0 (left) & 1.1(right) show the location of Yingtao with Tieshu Byways and Jalan TAR.

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2.0 Comparative Analysis According to Gehl, there are different types of activities occur within the open environment which include the necessary activities, optional activities and social activities. Social activities are activities that depend on the presence of public spaces and is actually the resultant action from the occurrence of necessary and optional activities (Gehl, 2011). It happen when outdoor condition is favourable.

Yingtao and Tieshu Byways are hutongs that are formed by the rows of siheyuan which are the courtyard houses. The courtyard houses along the byway are now mostly used as residential, shophouses or restaurants. There is a limited number of citizen that share the common interests or background. As they “know� each other, the social activities in public space is quite comprehensive. The courtyard house provides privacy to the residents but the byways ensure that the life is lived outside, along the hutongs. The byways acts as a public and sharing space for the citizens. They share the narrow lane to play games, hanging washing and simply chatting. Hutongs are the symbols of life of Beijingers, especially the older generation. The common social phenomenon occurs in the byways is the elderly citizens sitting together to play card, mahjong or Chinese chess. Along the narrow byways, traditional foods are being sold in carts or small stalls. Besides, the lanes are highly walkable. The percentages of major modes of transportation used by the residents included 40% by foot, 40% by bikes, 27% by public transportation and only 13% by private cars (Bu, 2015). Foots and bikes are their main transportation and their best ways to get around and to conduct most of the activities along the narrow byways.

Figure 2.0 shows the social lifestyle within the byway.

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Jalan TAR is a city street and is famous by its textile and clothes selling. Social activities that take place will be generally superficial. The degree of the contact intensity would mostly be passive contacts as they are seeing and hearing a great number of unknown people. The main activities happen are driven by mostly necessary and optional activities. Spontaneous contacts like short exchange of words, watching somebody working or asking a few questions may develop between the passers-by and workers. The pedestrians are moving constantly to their destination and passing through with the other pedestrian quickly without having any interaction. Due to the privatization of the five foot walkway by the shop owners, the pedestrians are attracted and pausing to look at the clothes before carrying on with their journey. They initially did not plan to stop in front of the shop but because the outside condition are favourable, the optional activities occur. Jalan TAR is also highly walkable as pedestrian path are wide and well preserved.

Figure 2.1 & 2.2 shows walkability of Jalan TAR.

Contact point is defined as a place or spot where people get to meet and interact with each other.

The type of contact points are varying according to the degrees of contact intensity between the individuals. The degree of contact intensity comes in an outline from the most modest passive contacts to highest level of establishing a close friendship (Gehl, 2011).

Figure 2.3 shows the contact point along Tieshu Byway. Pedestrian is walking along the byway and the citizens who “know� each other are engaging in conversation.

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Pedestrian walkways can be defined as paths or channel of movement for the public or services lines where people can interact, walk, play or rest. In Tieshu Byway, as we can see from the contact point Figure 2.3, pedestrians are walking on the middle of road. There is no specific pedestrian walkway provided along the byway. The shop owners start their day by setting up table or tools out of the street.

By doing so, they can easily converse with the passers-by. The old furniture are placed in front of the local market and they served as a secondary seating area for the shop owner, neighbour or even the pedestrians. The seating provides an environment or platform which encourage the social activities and interaction to occur. The neighbourhoods give a feeling as if they are all family members. They play, buy goods, gossip and connect with each other every day (Zhou, 2015). According to Gehl, a person we have often met on the street becomes a person we “know” (Gehl, 2011). They see each other every day therefore they know each other. Therefore, the degrees of the contact intensity happens along the walkway of byways are mostly passive and friends.

Figure 2.4 & 2.5 show the five-foot walkway along Jalan TAR.

In Jalan TAR, five-foot walkway is a significant architecture element along the street to provide shades for the pedestrians. Physical or architecture planning is actually connecting or affecting the occurrence of social activities (Gehl, 2011). As showed in Figure 2.4 and 2.5, the covered area beneath provides a favourable environment and platform to allow and encourage the interaction between the pedestrians. The presence of five-foot walkway reflects to Gehl’s theory which the outdoor activities take place when the exterior conditions are favourable. By preserving the shophouse architecture Eclectic style, the memories image of the pedestrian would be triggered and evoked when they are walking through the five-foot walkway. The inner language of the architecture evokes the feeling and the memory of the users (Pallasmaa, 1986). Besides, the five-foot walkway have become another form of public space

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that allows occurrence of human activities. However, the walkability is reduced as the shop owners extend their business to the five foot walkway. This phenomenon forces the pedestrians to walk on the exterior pedestrian walkway. As there is lacking of seating opportunity, the pedestrians are just going to pass by and their stay will be very brief. The degrees of the contact intensity happen along the five-foot walkway of Jalan TAR are mostly passive and chance contacts. By comparing these two contact points, public space within five-foot walkway have a lower-intensity contact than the walkway of the byways.

Figure 2.6 (left) & 2.7 (right) shows the difference of the walkways along Tieshu and Yingtao Byways and Jalan TAR (five-foot walkway).

As in compared with the scale of building, Figure 2.8 shows that buildings along the byways are mostly single stories. The low building scale gives the sense of harmony for the pedestrian as the buildings along the street are parallel with the direction of the movement pattern. It keeps a good contact from the human eye level as it encourages the enclosure of the in between spaces to direct the circulation and movement of the people harmoniously. As compared to Jalan TAR, except some of the well preserved double stories shophouses, Jalan TAR are visually overwhelmed by those publicly-irrelevant buildings with high building scale. This phenomenon actually opposed to the theory of legibility in “Image of the City�, as the buildings that stood out from the rest should be those of the greatest public relevance (Lynch, 1960).

Figure 2.8(left) & 2.9(right) shows the difference of the building scale along Tieshu and Yingtao Byways and Jalan TAR.

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Figure 2.10 shows the contact point at the intersection of Tieshu and Yingtao Byway. The open space in the front of the temple which acts as a local landmark which provides sufficient seating opportunity and encourages the occurrence of social activities.

Contact point relies on the existence of objects or open spaces that draw the concentration of the crowd such as node, junction or intersection and landmark. Contact points are also can be found at open or shaded spaces provided with sufficient seating opportunity. Figure 2.10 shows the contact point around a local landmark of Yingtao and Tieshu byway which is the temple. There is a large open space with sufficient of secondary seating provided in front of the landmark which act as a gathering or resting point. Good sitting opportunity will encourage activities such as eating, reading or even interaction with each other to happen. The intensity of contact at this point is high as it comprises all types of the activities such as necessary activities like people going to work or going for a lunch, optional activities like tourists visiting and social activities like the people sitting together at the open space and engaging in conversation.

Figure 2.11 & 2.12 show the contact point in front of the landmark - Sogo shopping mall at Jalan TAR. The wide staircases provide the platform for the occurrence of varies type of outdoor activities.

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Figure 2.11 and 2.12 show the contact point in front of a landmarks, Sogo shopping mall in Jalan TAR. It becomes an interesting point to be compared to the landmark of the byways. A good sitting opportunity allow the people to view all the activities happened around. The wide staircases along the pedestrian walkway acts as a secondary seating area for the pedestrians to rest or even a best spot to watch the street performance. It linked back to Gehl’s statement that activities act as an attraction for the people to gather and share experience through visual and interaction. The passers-by would get attracted by the street performance, stop by and sit on the staircases to observe the activities happening there and create a more comprehensive interaction. Same with the contact point at Tieshu and Yingtao Byways, the open space in front of a landmark successfully creates a favourable environment for the occurrence of the interaction between individuals. Therefore, the intensity of contacts at this point is also high as it also comprises the all three types of outdoor activities.

3.0 Conclusion In conclusion, hutong way of lifestyle allows the neighbours feel safe playing chess on the streets or just sitting together for hours and reading the daily newspaper (Bu, 2015). Due to the cross interlacement of the byways, every houses are connected to each other. The locals are easier to keep in touch with one another. The byways act like a big house, varies goods are sold along the street to satisfy the local people’s daily needs. The feeling of the depth and warmth of the relationship between the local people overwhelmed the place. However, the activities happening in Jalan TAR is more target oriented.

People take it as a destination as Jalan TAR itself is rich in culture and social value. The spaces are mainly used for activities such as clothes and textile selling, food selling and even street performance.

These activities indirectly play a role to increase the chance of interaction and engagement between the people which will eventually increase the lower level of contact to higher intensity of contacts. In my opinion, Tieshu and Yingtao Byways would have higher contact intensity if compare to Jalan TAR due to the social patterns, contact points and the degree of contact intensity.

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4.0 Reference

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4. Jalan Tuanku Abdul Rahman | Tourism Malaysia. (n.d.). Retrieved July 01, 2017, from http://www.malaysia.travel/en/au/places/states-of-malaysia/kuala-lumpur/jalan-tuanku-abdulrahman 5. Lynch, K. (1960). The image of city (1st ed.). Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press 6. Pallasmaa, J. (1986). The Geometry of Feeling: A Look at the Phenomenology of Architecture.

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