Vertical Urbanism PDF

Preview

Summary

U R B A N ISM vert ic al Edi ted by Z h ong ji e L i n an d José L . S . Gám ez VERTICAL URBANISM China Studio 2012-2014 Copyright © 2017 by UNC Charlotte School of Architecture All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without a wri...

Description

U R B A N ISM

vert ic al

Edi ted by Z h ong ji e L i n an d José L . S . Gám ez

VERTICAL URBANISM China Studio 2012-2014

Copyright © 2017 by UNC Charlotte School of Architecture All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without a written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotation in a book review. Edited by Zhongjie Lin and José L.S. Gámez Designed by May Khalife, Laurel Nee, and Zhang Chi First Print 2017 Copyright: School of Architecture, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Boulevard, Charlotte, NC 28223. Email: [email protected]

ISBN: 978-1-64007-567-2

CONTENTS 3

Preface Christopher Jarrett

10

Vertical Urbanism: Re-conceptualizing the Compact City. Zhongjie Lin, Ph.D.

24

When New Urbanism Gets Old: Differing Cultures in Global City Design. José L.S. Gámez, Ph.D.

38

Suzhou Industrial Park High-Speed Rail Station Business District, Suzhou, 2012

88

Xiangmen Area Redevelopment, Suzhou, 2013

134

Redevelopment Plan for Wuyuan Bay, Xiamen, 2014

P R E FAC E Christopher Jarrett

In an era of rapid globalization, emerging design professionals must be both globally aware and culturally adept. Studying in a foreign country typically represents one of the most significant and unforgettable experiences of one’s design education. The perceived walls of an educational institution dematerialize when students travel internationally. Traveling abroad gives students the opportunity to gain first-hand experience of the larger global community in which they will take part. To travel, as Marshall McLuhan cites, is to encounter the strange and the unfamiliar. In so doing, one discovers insights into other cultures, develops new perspectives, and learns to reflect on how one’s own culture has shaped their own understanding of the world around them. In 2012, UNC Charlotte’s Master of Urban Design (MUD) program initiated an integrated study abroad component as part of its three-semester curriculum. The international summer component is positioned within the curriculum for a three-year cycle and is composed of two courses—an urban design studio and an urban seminar. Each three-year cycle is based in a different region of the world. The multiple-year focus enables more structured and consistent teaching, and allows students and faculty to investigate urban design problems pertinent to a particular region of the world. Each year a different urban site is investigated. The three-year commitment of the program enables the faculty to be engaged in sustained research and collaboration with colleagues abroad as students move in and out of

the program each year. As a result of this initiative, a global in-situ educational experience has become an essential, integral component of the MUD program’s urban design pedagogy. The first three-year cycle of this new initiative was located in China. A country undergoing rapid urbanization on a massive scale, China’s dramatic urban redevelopments had caught the attention of urban theorists and planners for more than two decades. The country, in effect, has become the world’s laboratory for new technologies and designs where global talent sought to realize their futurist visions. The China program was tailored to explore issues relevant to Asian cities but with a global influence. It was also designed to provide students the opportunity to examine a range of topics not typically studied in American urban design studios due to the different challenges of urban environments in China. Structured around the title of “Vertical Urbanism: Density, Complexity, and Verticality,” the China program aimed to examine emerging patterns of urban growth and transformation in high-density urban areas, using concepts of vertical urbanism to provide alternative visions and strategies for the revitalization and expansion of urban centers. The studio was organized around investigating a specific question of Chinese urbanism each year. In the studio setting, instructors met with students daily, resulting in substantial engagement in research 3

Vertical Urbanism

Figure 1: Tianjin, China

in the program, introducing project sites, leading discussions, and participating in design reviews. In return, the students’ speculative design projects provided them with fresh insights and alternative ideas for future development. The design teams also engaged the municipalities and agencies governing the development of urban projects in Suzhou, including Suzhou City Planning Bureau and the Suzhou Industrial Park Administrative Committee (SIPAC). While based in Suzhou, overnight stays (5-nights each) in Beijing and Shanghai were incorporated into the field study. There were also a number of day visits to other cities, including Tianjin, Hangzhou, and Wuzhen (Figure 1). Many students elected to travel to Hong Kong at the conclusion of the program, before returning to campus to develop their design work. In addition to numerous historic and contemporary sites, the students and faculty visited several architecture and urban design firms and 4

through both teaching and the iterative design process. The seminar component of the program focused on China’s emerging new town movement and explored a number of compelling contemporary spaces, including industrial parks, theme towns, and eco-cities. Each year, the program concluded with a traditional Chinese dinner, celebrating the productive collaboration between students, faculty and local institutions. The first and second year of the China program was based in Suzhou, a city of 10 million people located west of Shanghai in Jiangsu Province, known for its historical canals, bridges and classical gardens. Faculty and students from UNC Charlotte collaborated with their peers from Suzhou University of Science and Technology. Cross-cultural student teams were formed, composed of a mix of students from each institution. Real sites were chosen as potential developments in the city. Local governmental agencies and developers participated

Preface

Figure 2: Humble Administrator’s Garden, Suzhou

conducted exchanges with several peer institutions, including Tongji University and Tsinghua University. Teaching took place in different settings, in the form of guest lectures, drawing assignments, discussions, and exhibitions. In summer 2012, students studied the development of a new business and residential district in front of the high-speed train station in Suzhou Industrial Park (SIP). The 110-acre area had been built as a low-density industrial zone since the mid-1990’s. However, with the continuing expansion of tertiary industries in the SIP and the introduction of a highspeed rail station, the site was rezoned as a highdensity business district, with plans for a state-owned developer to build office towers, hotels, and highrise residential areas surrounding a 20-acre central park. Two proposed metro lines would intersect at the site. Governed by SIPAC, the new infrastructure centered on a multi-level transportation node, high-density programs, and various types of open

spaces. Such complexity prompted a combinatory approach to urban design with particular attention on urban verticality. The Suzhou Industrial Park Redevelopment Corporation served as the client. They presented the overall charge of the project to the international teams and reviewed the design work as it progressed. In summer 2013, a project site was chosen in Suzhou’s historic center, characterized by a unique double-chessboard network of streets and canals, surrounded by several world-renown classical Chinese gardens (Figure 2). The redevelopment of two large blocks within such a significant historic setting raised a number of challenging urban design questions. Students were asked to consider three important aspects—history, infrastructure, and ecology—in proposing new interventions in the historic district that should maintain its cultural continuity and identity while stimulating its evolution with new programs and activities. Five group projects 5

Vertical Urbanism

Figure 3: Final Design Review, 2013

Figure 4: U.S. and Chinese design collaboration

were presented at the final review with jurors from leading universities in China as well as principals of international design firms (Figure 3). The experts and clients were impressed by the student projects, with many ideas potentially applicable to this site. The rich urban analyses embodied in the projects referenced the wider urban context, underscoring important issues in the long-term development of the area.

the ancient mountainous villages featuring Tu Lou, a unique vernacular form of commune in Fujian, which inspired some students’ concepts (Figure 5).

In summer 2014, after visiting Beijing, Suzhou, and Shanghai, the program moved south to the island of Xiamen, a port city on China’s southeast coast in Fujian province. Faculty and students collaborated with peers from Xiamen University and Wuhan University on the urban redevelopment of a nearby coastal site (Figure 4). Students were charged to take special care of the local settlement patterns adjacent to the site while proposing new densities and vertical complexities. Like the two years before, excursions were organized to other sites and cities including 6

With every cohort, the students were noticeably motivated by the opportunity to collaborate with Chinese students, faculty, and clients, as well as the chance to work on real sites and a real design project in a foreign country. The large-scale projects they visited along the way and the dynamic urban change in the country they observed also challenged them to approach urban design in a fresh and often inhibited way. In this sense, UNC Charlotte’s integrated urban design study abroad program transformed itself into a dynamic, collaborative laboratory for cross-cultural exchange, speculative research, productive civic engagement, and global cooperative intelligence. Tomorrow’s design leaders are those who will be able to better understand and navigate an increasingly globalized world. Travel, immersive

Preface

Figure 5: Students in the workshop visited Tu Lou, 2014

study, collaboration and research abroad serve as valuable experiences for students of urban design. Such opportunities build students’ knowledge, understanding, confidence and ability to productively participate in a global context. After three years and three trips east, our students and faculty have a much better idea of the forces at work driving our global cities and the populations who inhabit them. Through immersive study abroad, one begins to slowly gain an honest understanding of why the world is the way it is. For our students to land in the city of Suzhou or Xiamen after racing across the night sky for 14 hours at 36,000ft is to appreciate the historic epoch they’re living in and to reflect on all its possibilities.

7

8

9

Vertical Urbanism

VERTICAL URBANISM: R E - C O N C E P T U A L I Z I N G T H E C O M PA C T C I T Y Zhongjie Lin, Ph.D.

Although the term “compact city” appears frequently in academic accounts of sustainable urbanism as well as in professional documents for planning projects, it is often used in a manner generally linked to certain well-established principles including high density, mixed uses, walkability, and transit oriented development (TOD). The fixed language ties the concept to traditional Western urbanism, while the compact city actually possesses the power to generate dynamic urban forms, utilize cutting-edge technologies, address pressing environmental issues, and respond to distinctive geographical and cultural contexts—thus enabling it to challenge conventional notions of urbanism. The awareness of limitations of current theory and practice leads to the introduction of “Vertical Urbanism” as an alternative discourse of the compact city responding proactively to the state of contemporary metropolises characterized by density, complexity, and verticality. Vertical Urbanism distinguishes itself from the nostalgic idea of neo-traditional urbanism on one hand, and the static Modernist notion promoting tall buildings as dominant urban typology on the other. In contrast, it advocates physically interactive and socially engaged forms addressing the city as a multi-layered and multi-dimensioned organism. We have been investigating the concept of Vertical Urbanism and studying its influence in urban design through a series of capstone studios in the Master of Urban Design program of the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. These studios, conducted in several cities in the United States and China, focused on various design issues such as urban infrastructure, transit system, industrial waterfront redevelopment, 10

and downtown revitalization, and tested the concept in different geographic and cultural settings. This essay will first trace the historical development of and debates surrounding the concept of the compact city, and define the approach of Vertical Urbanism from both historical and practical dimensions. It will then examine important urban design issues based on Vertical Urbanism through the studio projects, including the relationship between density and vitality, the relationship between horizontal and vertical dimensions, space of flow and scalar shift, as well as the ecological and social adaptability of mega-forms. These pedagogical experiments helped frame the design methodology of Vertical Urbanism, and explore the capacity of this global urban tactic to provide localized design solutions.

Debates on the Compact City The compact city is a relatively recent concept in the discourses of urbanism. Many attribute the idea to Jane Jacobs and her seminal work The Death and Life of Great American Cities, which argues for dense and diverse urban centers like Manhattan over the planned Modernist City or Garden City; but it was not until the late 1980s that the term “compact city” became commonly used academically and professionally.1 Studies of the compact city have evolved along with rising awareness of climate change and the global movement of sustainable development following the 1987 Brundtland Report.2 This report, published by the United Nations’ World Commission on Environment and Development, prompts policy makers as well as professionals to rethink the role of urban design and development to better protect

Re-conceptualizing the Compact City

and sustain human habitats. As a result, the idea of the compact city was circulated in both policy circles as well as professional planning and development communities, and became particularly influential in Europe where political leaders appeared to be more concerned about issues pertaining to energy shortages, global warming, and the negative impacts of urban sprawl. Two documents, both published by European governmental agencies in 1990, are instrumental in this endeavor. One is the United Kingdom’s White Paper on the Environment, also published as This Common Inheritance.3 The other is the Green Paper on the Urban Environment published by the Commission of the European Communities.4 Both recognize the role of urban planning and urban form in achieving environmental and urban sustainability, and advocate the “compact city” as a solution of the dilemmas facing European cities.5 The Green Paper particularly favors the planning approach of compact city not only for its environmental benefits including energy consumption and emissions but also its potential contribution to the quality of life. Both documents have been quite influential and led to a series of other publications, which further articulate this concept. One of these well-known publications is entitled Towards an Urban Renaissance, put together by the Urban Task Force led by Sir Richard Rogers in the United Kingdoms in 1999.6 These documents characterize the compact city as a form of highdensity development with increased socio-economic diversity and an improved public realm encouraging low-carbon lifestyles and supported by public transit infrastructure. Influenced by these discourses, the compact city has grown into an important component

in the practice of sustainable urbanism, in fighting urban sprawl, and linking attributes of physical urban form to healthy environment and society. However, there have been different definitions of the compact city and opinions regarding its impact on city building. Michael Breheny’s essay “The Contradictions of the Compact City,” published in 1992, summarizes the early—and still unresolved—debates on the concept and its planning implications.7 On the one hand, its proponents claim that the compact and functionally mixed urban form can meet two major planning objectives neatly: one to protect the natural environment, and the other to foster the quality of life in a healthy city. On the other hand, opponents point out several limitations of the concept. Critics suspect that the relationship between a compact urban form and environmental improvement might not be as direct as its sponsors claim. They also criticize that the prevailing definitions of compact city are tied primarily to Western models, often referring to pre-modern or early-modern urban forms in Europe, and thus represent a particular set of fixed cultural identities.8 Although most scholars recognize that a compact form contributes positively to urban sustainability, the criticisms nevertheless indicate inadequacies of current approaches to building a compact city. Since the 1980s, New Urbanism has gradually developed into a dominant discourse of city building in the United States, in concurrence with the growth of the organizations supporting it, and it has influenced urban design practices across the world. Proposals for designing compact cities are often 11

Vertical Urbanism

associated with principles of the New Urbanism movement like high density, mixed-uses, walkability, traditional neighborhood development, and transit oriented development (TOD). While these principals represent fundamentals of sustainable development, the fixed design language further strengthens the compact city’s connotation of traditional Western urban form. In addition, complex political, social and cultural factors in contemporary societies have led to different forms of urban density, and demand incorporation of regional contexts both morphologically and sociologically in urban design practice. The expanding territory of human agglomeration has also led to a growing scale of urban systems, including its mass transportation, information networks, and ecological systems, which in turn are changing the process of urban intensification. These global conditions, thus, require a reinterpretation of compactness in which a higher degree of integration and interaction of urban components becomes the key.

Concept of Vertical Urbanism The Master of Urban Design program at UNC Charlotte has been engaged in the investigation of Vertical Urbanism as an alternative approach to the design of compact city. This concept responds proactively to the state of contemporary metropolises characterized by the relationships of density, complexity, and verticality. It is concerned with physically complex and socially engaged spatial forms featuring the contemporary city as a multilayered and multi-dimensioned organism. Vertical Urbanism thus distinguishes itself from the nostalgic 12

idea of New Urbanism on one hand, and Modernist notions promoting tall buildings as a dominant urban typology on the other. We have continued to frame the methodology of Vertical Urbanism in the context of a series of capstone urban design studios, using them as laboratories to investigate the design, ecologi...