University of Utah E Publications

Chen, Liujun

Sun, Miao

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
THE EVOLUTION OF URBAN LANDSCAPE AND COPING STRATEGIES 
FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE: A CASE STUDY 
OF DINGHAI-PINGLIANG DISTRICT, SHANGHAI 
Liujun Chen, Postgraduate Student, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University 
Miao Sun, Doctor, College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University 
ABSTRACT 
The metropolises of East Asia have undergone explosive changes in spatial forms in the past 
century, creating some extreme and challenging new forms of space. It is of great significance to 
explore the formation process and deep-seated institutional incentives and propose 
countermeasures to maintain the continuity of urban landscape development. The Dinghai-
Pingliang neighborhood of Yangpu, Shanghai, has gradually developed landscape units in 
different historical periods and is a representative sample of urban landscape areas in Chinese 
metropolises. This article uses Conzen's urban landscape theory as an analytical framework, 
summarizes the important urban landscape units that have appeared in the region for a century, 
and explores the impact of institutional changes on it. From the perspectives of street system, 
building form and land-use model, this paper compares the urban spatial forms of the four 
historical nodes of 1949, 1979, 1999, and 2019, studies the changes in urban landscape, and 
concludes four units with historical characteristics type: "Anchored", "Deep Sliced", "Collaged", 
"Mutant". Preliminary results show that the replacement of urban landscape units that lack 
continuity has led to the unsustainable development of urban landscape areas, reflecting the 
systematic failure of institutional changes in responding to industrial transformation and the 
rapidly growing urban population. In a conclusion, this article finally proposes that measures 
based on local characteristics should be adopted to promote community-level planning, advocate 
public participation mechanisms, encourage mixed development, and emphasize the continuous 
identification and evaluation of physical space, which will provide technical support for improving 
urban landscapes. 
INTRODUCTION  
Before discussing this issue, it is necessary to clarify that there is not a single type of housing in 
China. In addition to a large number of modern commercial gated communities, the unit compound 
and workers’ villages built before the reform and opening up are undergoing a series of complex 
social changes. After that, it still exists in the city in a diverse and complex state, so the 
understanding of the types of Chinese housing will become the prerequisite for the classification 
and discussion of the open block transformation. Based on the sorting out of the types of residential 
communities in China since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, this article will briefly 
describe the social background and corresponding residential and management models generated 
by the unit compound, workers’ new village, international community, and gated community, and 
analyze the results of China’s commercialized communities. Internal factors, these factors will 
become the basis for us to discuss how to "gradually open" the built community and the key point 
for potential breakthroughs. 
  
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
BACKGROUND  
Since the reform and opening up in the 1980s, a series of policy factors have led to 
commercialization and the emergence of large closed communities, which can be roughly traced to 
the following aspects: upper-level planning, land policy systems, housing policies, and urban 
renewal policies. 
In the upper plan, in 2010, my country proposed to build an ecological community that is livable, 
industrial and creative. 
In the land policy system, since the 1990s, a paid-use system has been implemented for land; at the 
beginning of the 21st century, a "bid, auction, listing" system has been implemented for all land. 
The land policy system is the direct cause of the main road. In many cases, in order to reduce 
infrastructure investment, the government uses infrastructure construction as an additional condition 
for developers to obtain land. The speed of land development is accelerated, and the main roads 
of low-density cities are gradually being built in the new city. Spread. 
Among the housing policy factors, the housing system began to reform in the 1980s, and housing 
distribution was "monetized" in the 1990s, that is, housing marketization. For the original workers’ 
new village, the government has begun to privatize the workshops since 1994. The government 
sold the rented public housing to the original tenants at a lower price to complete the privatization 
of public housing. For newly developed residential quarters, it has created a monopoly situation in 
which developers are the mainstay, which will inevitably lead to extreme emphasis on development 
interests while ignoring urban issues and neglect of public interests 
In terms of urban renewal policies, since 2010, the state proposed "incremental expansion, stock 
optimization" and the trial implementation of the "15-minute living circle community planning 
guidelines". The transformation and opening of closed commercial communities have been widely 
discussed. 
Reveal the inner logic behind the commercialization of China's residential communities and the 
large-scale closed communities. These deep-seated factors support commercialization, the 
emergence of large-scale closed communities, and subsequent operations, and will also become the 
key point for breakthroughs in the transition to an open and shared "block system". 
  
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
FINDINGS - INTRINSIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN "RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY" AND "SMALL 
BLOCK SYSTEM" COMMUNITIES.  
 
1 The relationship between architecture and city 
From the perspective of the purely material space relationship between the building and the city, it 
can also be interpreted as the relationship between the private residential space in the city and the 
public space where communication occurs. In residential quarters, the surrounding walls privatize a 
large amount of community space, and people enter the underground garage of the community 
through car dealers. In the "small block" community, the building directly faces the urban space, 
and the entrance door of the residence directly faces the street, and the urban public space has a 
stronger penetration. 
2 Enclosure method 
From the boundary point of view, the residential community determines the management ownership 
of the community property through the fence. Due to the land policy guidance of the developer’s 
land acquisition rules, the government also transfers the ownership of the infrastructure construction 
and management of the land to the developer. The developer is about to privatize the streets and 
public services in the plot and become part of the community’s common property rights. This is 
consistent with the spatial model of the unit compound. When optimizing its own internal space 
experience and facility services, the community has an indifferent face to the urban space. The 
"small block system" community defines the urban public space and the semi-public space of the 
community through architectural methods, presenting compact blocks and rich architectural 
interfaces facing the city. In connection with the relationship between the building and the city 
analyzed above, the "building" and "demolition" of the wall can be understood as a problem of 
the depth of urban public space. 
3 "Soft" management model 
From the perspective of the "soft" management model, the enclosure method is closely related to 
the management model. The wall is the result of the city's responsibility for providing public services 
and building community infrastructure to developers. It is an emergency measure after the outbreak 
of social security problems and a symbol of the declaration of private property rights in the era of 
global neoliberalism. [6] But in fact, there is no direct relationship between the existence of the 
Figure 1. Residential district city model and 
open block city model 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
fence and the closure of the community. Due to the property management mechanism, some large 
gated communities are also allowed to pass freely. Therefore, the behavior of "building the wall" 
itself is entrusted to the community. The guarantee of safety has not been truly implemented, and 
the "wall" has become a symbol of maintaining the so-called "shared property rights" in the 
community. And the "small block system" community does not mean the rejection of "closed", it 
does not mean the avoidance of security issues, but the division of "closed" access control areas 
and the reduction of access control levels , Through more technical and effective means to balance 
safety and vitality. 
REFERENCES 
Conzen, M.R.G. (1960) Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis. Transactions and 
Papers (Institute of British Geographers), (27), pp.iii-122. 
 Carmona, M., Heath, T., Oc, T. and Tiesdell, S. (2012) Public places-Urban spaces. Routledge. 
 Jin, D., Guochao, Q. (2009) An Introduction to Urban Morphology in Foreign Countries. Nanjing: 
Southeast University Press. 
 Larkham, P.J. & Whitehand, J.W.R. (2013) Urban landscapes: international perspectives. 
Routledge. 
 Slater, T.R. ed. (1990) The Built form of western cities: essays for MRG Conzen on the occasion of 
his 80th birthday. Leicester: Leicester University Press. 
Urban and Rural Planning Law of the People's Republic of China. [Online]. Available from: 
http://www.cin.gov.cn/zcfg/fl/200710/t20071029_159509.htm.2007. 
Zhenyu, L. & Miao, S. (2017) An Introduction to the Study on Technical System of Community-
Oriented Regeneration of “Downtown Factories” in the Yangtze River Delta. Journal of 
Architecture. 
Miao, S & Zhenyu, L. (2005) Research on land features and regeneration strategies of industrial 
remain sites in the central cities——Case study of seven cities in Yangtze River Delta. Urban 
Planning Academic Journal. 
Song, Z. (2015) Industrial Heritage Protection and Regeneration in Redevelopment Areas Across 
the Huangpu River in Shanghai. Urban Planning Academic Journal. 
Dongsheng, L. & Bingzhao, C. (2005) Countermeasures for Industrial Land Renewal in Yangpu 
Old Industrial Zone, Shanghai: From "Industrial Yangpu" to "Knowledge Yangpu" [J]. Urban 
Planning Academic Journal. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Miao Sun. College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University. sascha@tongji.edu.cn 


English

The evolution of urban landscape and coping strategies from the perspective of institutional change: a case study of Dinghai-Pingliang district, Shanghai

Yang, Xiao

Zhou, Decheng

Zheng, Ying

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
STUDY ON THE STREET INTERFACE OF THE FORMER NINE-COUNTRY 
CONCESSIONS' BOUNDARY IN TIANJIN, CHINA 
Xiao Yang, Master candidate of School of Architecture, Tianjin University, China 
Decheng Zhou, Bachelor of School of Architecture, Tianjin University, China 
Ying Zheng, Associate Professor of School of Architecture, Tianjin University, China 
ABSTRACT 
The former concessions' area of modern Tianjin was planned and constructed by nine different 
countries. Consequently, a typical collage fabric was formed and there were many administrative 
boundary streets between different countries' concessions or different construction stages of one 
country's concession, which became to be a unique kind of street network in Tianjin when 
comparing to other colonial cities. Considering that existing studies have indicated differences in 
morphological characteristics at the street network, block, and plot scale on opposite sides of the 
streets above mentioned, this paper aims to further discuss morphological boundaries of street 
interface. First, based on the spatial distribution of different courtyard walls, the most common 
interface type, it’s summarized that morphological characteristics on both sides of some streets 
present convergence from the street network scale to building scale, while others present 
divergence. Meanwhile, the morphological differences can continue to the entrance scale. 
Moreover, this paper further discusses the three-dimensional interface characteristics on Jinzhou 
Road, the most typical and stable boundary street, also one of the boundary streets at the 
building scale, the contrast of streetscape influenced by interface layers and thickness on opposite 
sides is obvious through analysis, which thus affects pedestrians’ perceived enclosure.  
Keywords: urban morphology, boundary, interface, streetscape. 
INTRODUCTION  
The former concessions' area of modern Tianjin from 1860 to 1945, was planned and constructed 
by nine different countries. Consequently, a typical collage fabric was formed during more than 
eighty years. Meanwhile, there were many boundary streets between different countries' 
concessions or different construction stages of one country's concession, which became to be a 
unique kind of street network in Tianjin, when comparing to other colonial cities. 
Among these areas, the planning and development of former Britain, French and Japanese 
concessions were more in-depth, and the completed urban areas were also relatively large, 
attracting more attention from urban morphological analysis. In existing studies, we can observe 
that the above-mentioned administrative boundary streets present “boundary phenomenon” in 
terms of urban morphology, that is, different morphological characteristics on opposite sides of the 
road. In addition, these characteristics present varying degrees of divergence and convergence at 
different levels in the hierarchy of morphological elements, including streets, blocks and plots 
(Kropf, 2017, p.26). 
Although two-dimensional analyses have accumulated rich materials, they can hardly reflect 
perception and experience from the pedestrian point of view while walking on these particular 
roads. Based on this, this paper deals with following problems: If we continue to increase the level 
of resolution in the hierarchy of elements, what are the differences in morphological characteristics 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
of buildings? When the perspective is converted from two-dimensional description above the city to 
three-dimensional description inside the city, how will the boundary phenomenon change? For 
pedestrians on the boundary streets, do they literally feel contrasting streetscape from the interface 
on opposite sides? 
BACKGROUND  
Boundaries, borders and 
borderlands have been at the 
center of research in 
anthropology, political 
geography, ecology and 
sociology, to name just a few. 
By contrast, they have been 
neglected in urban studies for 
a long time. In 2013, a special 
issue of Cities was devoted to 
calling on scholars to pay 
attention to boundary issues 
across multiple spatial scales in 
the study of cities in which lies 
the hope to contribute to a 
more comprehensive 
understanding of cities as 
complex and evolving, their 
parts – like the boundaries 
around them – only partially 
formed and always incomplete. 
Of particular significance for a 
better understanding of urban 
condition appears the analysis 
of the interplay between the 
macro and micro scale forces 
that, as they intersect, give rise 
to and shape urban boundaries 
(Iossifova, 2013). 
Among nine countries’ concessions in Tianjin, the scope of this study is former Britain, French and 
Japanese concessions. These three concessions not only were best-developed during that period, 
but also form the current city center region which has been the major area for large-scale urban 
redevelopment and urban renewal. Needless to say, road-related research is a necessary 
prerequisite for street design and landscape control in these construction activities. 
In the hierarchy of morphological elements, at the level of street network, the boundary 
phenomenon of several roads is particularly obvious due to grid networks of different planning 
schemes. Yingkou Road, between former British and French concessions, has typical boundary 
characteristics including specific network direction, intersection type and block shape. Dagu North 
Road, between initial concession and Municipal Extension of the former British concession, contains 
Figure 1. Research scope and morphological boundary streets in existing studies. 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
a series of T-shaped intersections (Qiao, 2016). Looking down the hierarchy, in addition to Yingkou 
Road, Jinzhou Road, between former French and Japanese concessions, also presents 
morphological differences at the block scale (Xue, 2014). Down to the plot scale, Yingkou Road no 
longer appears as a boundary and only Jinzhou Road divides different morphological regions 
(Deng, 2016) (Figure 1). 
Based on this review, we can preliminarily summarize that as the level of resolution increases, the 
difference between networks in different construction stages of one country’s concession converges 
at the block and plot scale. As for boundary streets between different countries’ concessions, some 
present similar convergence as the level of resolution increases while others present divergence in 
contrast. 
Recent years witness the raising of quantitative morphological tools in urban morphology, 
especially those focused on the pedestrian point of view, which could be particularly appropriate in 
the study of urban phenomenon related to human perception. In this paper, they provide support 
for clarifying the boundary phenomenon of street interface inside the city. 
METHODOLOGY  
If we observe urban form at the building scale, the courtyard wall is an obvious and important 
component in traditional Chinese block. It is not only an integral part of the urban fabric but also 
occupies most of the interface along the street (accounting for 70% in the famous Wukang Road in 
Shanghai as an example) (Sha et al., 2009, p. 54). For this reason, this study first classifies the 
courtyard wall according to its morphological characteristics and its relationship with the building. 
Their spatial distribution partially reflects the morphological boundaries of the building scale. The 
study also examines the micromorphology of street interfaces, considering the entrance form of the 
courtyard wall, where close encounters with buildings always happen.  
The further study focuses on the three-dimensional morphological characteristics of the interface. In 
the early stage of urban morphological analysis, the endeavor of the French school of urban 
morphology gives rise to the systematization of quantitative measurements of urban forms. The 
analytical approaches of the street were then developed to be more applicable via the manuals by 
Allain (2004, p. 144). Following the early theory, the spatial information was reinterpreted into a 
series of indicators through the pedestrian point of view (Araldi and Fusco, 2017). This paper 
refers to the above methods and divides the morphological indicators of the street interface into 
three dimensions: plan, elevation, and section. 
FINDINGS  
Through observation of the form of the 
courtyard wall in three concessions, three 
general and typical courtyard wall types can 
be summarized, namely adjacent wall (the 
distance between wall and building is less 
than 5m), short wall (the length of the wall 
itself is less than 5m), and open courtyard 
wall (the length of wall exceeds 20m and 
there is always a certain distance between 
wall and building). Combined with buildings Figure 2. Classification of courtyard walls in former British, 
French and Japanese concessions. 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
behind, each type of courtyard wall has a completely different sense of perceived enclosure and 
perceived spaciousness. Together with the street wall formed by street-facing buildings and other 
non-typical walls, they constitute all the enclosed interfaces in the block (Figure 2).  
Here we can see the boundary phenomenon of building scale from the spatial distribution maps of 
different types of courtyard walls (Figure 3). In the distribution map of the street wall (see the upper 
left corner of Figure 3), the former French concession is more directly enclosed by buildings in 
general. At the same time, four relatively obvious boundary streets can be identified: Jinzhou 
Road, which still has boundary characteristics as the level of resolution increases. Xinhua Road, as 
the spatial boundary between the first and second construction stages of the former Japanese 
concession, it presents boundary phenomenon for the first 
time at the building scale. Chifeng Road and Heping 
Road, though they are not boundaries in any 
administrative sense, considering Yingkou Road and 
Dagu North Road that is one or two blocks away from 
them, we can regard them as a result of a “borderland” 
when the two sides of Yingkou Road and Dagu North 
Road continue to converge. In addition, the boundary 
characteristics of these four roads can be verified in the 
spatial distribution maps of three types of courtyard walls 
respectively. That is, Jinzhou Road is a boundary of 
adjacent walls, Xinhua Road is a boundary of short walls, 
Chifeng Road and Heping Road are boundaries of open 
courtyard walls simultaneously. 
Figure 3. Boundary streets at the level of building 
Figure 4. Comparison of the form of entrances on 
courtyard walls. 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Given that the relatively rough classification of the courtyard wall has boundary characteristics in 
the spatial distribution, we move forward to the more micro-scale, discussing the concrete form of 
courtyard walls, as well as the entrance form. Based on the field survey and case collection, it can 
be found that the entrance form of courtyard walls in the former Japanese concession is different 
from those of former British and French concessions. This contrast is reflected on both sides of 
Jinzhou Road. Specifically, on the French side, there are pillars between the wall as intervals, 
producing a rhythm of façade, the entrance is an interval between two pillars. And on the 
Japanese side, the entrance is a door opening on the courtyard wall, its form is emphasized and 
more prominent on the façade. This kind of entrance form is also prevalent inside the former 
Japanese concession (Figure 4). 
Briefly summarize, the boundaries of spatial 
distribution are different at different levels in 
the hierarchy of morphological elements. 
Citing theories of the ecological boundary, 
these boundaries in the sense of urban 
morphology are “scale-dependent” (Strayer 
et al., 2003). Moreover, as the resolution 
level increases from the street network, 
block, plot to the building, even entrance, 
the morphological characteristics on both 
sides of one group of streets present a trend 
of convergence, though there are obvious 
boundary characteristics at the street 
network scale, they don’t present continued 
contrast on the block (Dagu North Road) or 
plot (Yingkou Road) scale. Further, at the 
level of building, this convergence shifts the 
boundary one or two blocks away, forming 
a borderland, which is similar to the 
“permeable” characteristics of boundaries in 
ecological terminology (Ibid.). Conversely, 
the other group of streets presents a trend of 
divergence. Although the street network is 
connected, the contrasting morphological 
characteristics appear at higher resolution 
levels, like the block (Jinzhou Road) and 
building scale (Xinhua Road). And this 
boundary phenomenon persists at least until 
the building scale (Jinzhou Road).  
The follow-up part of this paper will focus on 
Jinzhou Road, the most stable boundary 
street at the building scale, comparing the 
three-dimensional interface form on the 
former French concession side and the 
former Japanese concession side separately, 
aiming to analyze the pedestrian's boundary Figure 5. Comparison of three-dimensional morphological 
characteristics on both sides of Jinzhou Road. 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
perception. The objects of analysis include only blocks with remaining historical buildings because, 
in addition to their plans, the data and information of the sections and elevations of the street can 
also be obtained through street view maps and surveying.  
First, in the plan view, the interface is divided into three layers. The first interface layer is the 
boundary between the sidewalk and roadway, the second layer is the courtyard wall (optional) 
and the third one is the building interface. Meanwhile, the interface thickness between every two 
layers can be calculated separately. The analysis result indicated that there are more three-layer 
interfaces on the side of the former Japanese concession, that is, more courtyards. At the same 
time, the third layer on the Japanese side is always continuous with uneven changes, while the only 
few three-layer interfaces in the former French concession are broken and not parallel to the street. 
In addition, the thickness between the second and third interface layers, that is, the depth of the 
courtyard on the Japanese side is much larger than that on the French side (Figure 5). 
Second, in the cross-section view, there are four typical forms. The section diagram and their 
prevalence along the street are shown in the figure. There are more courtyard walls in the former 
Japanese concession and more street-facing buildings in the former French concession. This 
conclusion is consistent with the results of analysis in the plan view as mentioned before. Except for 
that, on the Japanese side, it’s a common phenomenon that many second interface layers are 
small-volume one-story buildings themselves. We can speculate reasonably that it’s a kind of spatial 
strategy dealing with the narrow street while taking advantage of deep courtyards. 
Finally, it’s found that the morphological characteristics of the elevation dimension are not 
contrasting obviously by comparison. It confirms that is pedestrians’ perceived streetscape is more 
related to the form of courtyard in plan and section view. 
Therefore, this paper further answers the question of pedestrians' perception of the streetscape on 
a morphological boundary. Differences in the plan and section dimensions of the interface on both 
sides of the street, especially interface layers and thickness which closely related to courtyard walls 
will affect their experiences like perceived street width and enclosure. In addition, the differences in 
the form of entrances mentioned above can affect the perception of human scale to a certain 
extent. 
CONCLUSIONS 
In conclusion, this paper firstly takes the representative street interface, namely the courtyard wall 
as an example to analyze the morphological characteristics of former British, French and Japanese 
concessions at the building scale, then identifies boundary streets in spatial distribution maps. Then 
by comprehensively comparing these streets with boundary streets at the street network, block, and 
plot scale in the hierarchy of morphological elements, we can find out the changes of boundary 
streets at different levels as the resolution increases. It’s clarified that the boundaries of spatial 
distribution are different at different levels in the hierarchy of morphological elements, indicating 
morphological boundaries inside city are “scale-dependent”. Meanwhile, from the macro scale to 
micro scale, one group of boundary streets present convergence of morphological characteristics, 
the contrast between two sides goes from obvious to disappeared, even forming a borderland due 
to the “permeable” characteristics of boundaries. Conversely, the other group of boundary streets 
present divergence, the contrast between two sides only appears at a certain scale and continues 
to those smaller scales. The formation mechanism behind this boundary phenomenon needs further 
study. 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
The study further focuses on the three-dimensional interface characteristics of a typical road 
presenting divergence, Jinzhou Road, between the former Japanese concession and French 
concession. It’s found that the morphological differences between two sides of the street are 
obvious in plan and section view, especially those of interface layers and the thickness, which affect 
pedestrians’ perceived street width, and thus perceived enclosure. Moreover, the difference in the 
micromorphology of entrance form can affect pedestrian experience on human scale as well.  
REFERENCES 
Allain, R. (2004) Morphologie urbaine : géographie, aménagement et architecture de la ville 
(Armand Collin, Paris). 
Araldi, A. and Fusco, G. (2017) ‘Decomposing and Recomposing the City from the Pedestrian 
Point of View: A New Methodology for Urban Fabric Recognition and Characterization’, ICCSA 
2017. 
Deng, J. (2016) A study on Block and Plot Morphology of Former Concessions in Tianjin, Tianjin 
University. 
Iossifova, D. (2013) ‘Searching for common ground: Urban borderlands in a world of borders and 
boundaries’, Cities 34, 1-5. 
Kropf, K. (2017) The handbook of urban morphology (Wiley, Chichester).  
Qiao, X. (2016) Research on Street Network Morphological Characteristics and Mechanism of the 
Former Concessions District in Tianjin, Tianjin University. 
Strayer, D. L., Power, M. E., Fagan, W. F., Pickett, S. T. A. and Belnap, J. (2003) ‘A Classification 
of Ecological Boundaries’, BioScience 53, 723-729. 
Sha, Y., Ji, Y. and Qian, Z. (2009) Shanghai Wukang Road: A Historical Approach to Urban 
Regeneration (Tongji University Press, Shanghai).  
Xue, S. (2014) Research on City Spatial Scale in the Old Concession District of Tianjin Based on 
the City Morphology, Tianjin University. 
 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Ying Zheng, Associate Professor, School of Architecture, Tianjin University, No.92 Weijin Road, Room 300, 
Tianjin, 300072, China. zhengbomu@tju.edu.cn  


Study on the street interface of the former nine-country concessions' boundary in Tianjin, China

Isidoro, Inês

Marat-Mendes, Teresa

Tângari, Vera

Railway territories: a methodological approach to urban studies

Pan, Yanxiao

Huang, Yuan

Gao, Xinyu

Study on the influence of urban form on thermal environment from the view of integrated albedo

Tang, Lian

Ding, Wowo

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
URBAN PUBLIC SPACE IN NEW DISTRICT IN CHINA: WHAT URBAN 
DESIGN CAN DO 
Lian Tang, Research Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, 
China 
Wowo Ding, Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, China 
ABSTRACT 
Creating high-quality public space is one of the goals of urban design. There are many problems 
in the public space in China’s new city: large scale, independent function, unfriendly to walking 
activities, and so on. As we all know, the form of urban space is the result of a series of effects 
such as urban regulation, urban planning, urban design, architectural design, and etc. How to 
make urban design play the right role in this process, is the key question. Based on the actual case 
in Nanjing, the paper discusses the precondition premises, roles and means of urban design in 
order to obtain a more suitable space for human activities. The paper finds that although the 
urban regulations provide a large number of setback space and green space in the streets, but 
people’s activities concentrate in the places where have more appropriate scale, more convenient 
access, and more diverse functions alongside, mostly underground and inside the building, from 
the bottom up. Thus, urban design should optimize or actively create more such areas. Keywords: 
Urban Design, Public Space, Urban Regulation 
INTRODUCTION  
As we all know, the modern city has undergone radical changes in its physical form. Cities have 
become diffuse, loose and discontinuous (Levy, 1999). In the classical urban morphological 
hierarchy, streets/blocks/plots/buildings, streets are the main parts corresponding to public open 
spaces.  For the traditional city, the street space carries the main traffic, walking activities. While 
with the popularity of automobiles, traffic needs to be more straight and wider non-barrier roads, 
traffic and pedestrian activities have an irreconcilable 
contradiction. In Chinese modern cities, we find that 
traffic and walking system gradually separated. The 
streets, in the traditional sense, that separate blocks are 
difficult to assume the role of the main public space, 
and more public activities occur in the public space 
inside the plot. This phenomenon poses a challenge to 
the structure of the urban form: the area inside the plot 
become an important part of the public space. As in the 
more detailed hierarchy reviewed by Kropf (Kropf, 
2013), there are “areas” in the plot may also be part 
of the public space. Creating high-quality public 
pedestrian space is one of the goals of urban design. 
Based on the theory of urban morphology, urban 
design is to deal with the connected areas in the plots, 
beside the traditional street space. 
On the other hand, a wealth of literature on quality of public space shows that the preferred space 
for pedestrian has many characteristics which are included in five aspects: inclusiveness, 
pleasurability, meaningful activities, safety, comfort (Mehta, 2014). From the physical 
Figure 1. Multi-level diagram showing the 
position of the areas in the plot and its 
relationship to plot series to form the 
public pedestrian space in modern cities. 
(Redrawn from Kropf diagram) 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
morphological perspective, the main characteristics are: imageability, enclosure, human scale, 
transparency, complexity (Ewing & Handy, 2009). These literatures provide us with an objective 
way to evaluate the quality of public spaces. 
By casing a real case located in Hexi New Town in Nanjing, China, the paper provides an in-depth 
introduction and analysis of the separation of public pedestrian spaces from the street spaces, as 
well as the contradiction between urban design objectives and the actual use of the space.  
CASE STUDY 
 
 
Nanjing Hexi District is located west to the Old City. Since 1990s, the area has been changed from 
farmlands to new urban zones, which is the result of urban planning in different scale, as well as 
several urban designs. The case selected in the paper is located in the business center area of Hexi 
District, including four blocks and 12 semi-blocks. Two key axes have been planned, one is business 
office axis and the other is commercial axis. Plots with commercial land use and high FAR are 
arranged along the axis. To strengthen the axis, the position of the axis is set to 50m wide green 
space belt, which are expected to be used as public space. Then the urban design follows the 
concept of urban planning. Through control of building volume, setback distance, position of the 
entrance, and etc., the urban design controls the streetscape and interface of the main streets.  It 
can be found that after planning and urban design, there seems to be enough open space for 
public activities on both sides of the streets and the green spaces. 
After the construction and operation of the plots, due to the control of the design and regulations, 
the building on the plot is quite loose, the space between the buildings is huge. The setback 
regulations in the new town is very strict. For example, if the building height is 24-100m, the road is 
wider then 30m, the setback distance of the building is no less than 12m. To understand the use of 
public space, we have mapped the location and boundaries of the spaces actually used as urban 
public activities. The study found that sidewalks and public green spaces were not used by many 
people. Large crowds were concentrated near the subway station, in the underground space of the 
mall connected to the subway station. And on the ground floor, people were concentrated in the 
Figure 2. Landuse planning map of Hexi District 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
inner street of the mall. Although the central green space is very large, the surrounding residential 
area, office are not within the comfortable walking distance. There are not many people who use 
these spaces in daily life. 
 
EVALUATING THE QUALITY OF PUBLIC SPACE  
The following study will take two main public paths as an example.  Public spaces are drawn in 
detail, quality of the public spaces are evaluated, quantified and analyzed. Relationship between 
public space and the plots are discussed. In these two paths, one is connected to the inner street in 
two commercial buildings, subway station, underground space of public green space, etc. In the 
path there are high density of pedestrian activities. The total length of the route is about 1300 
metres, along with 8 squares. The path involves three plots. The other path connects the centre 
green space, sidewalk space of the planned streets, etc. 
Subsequently, a quantitative evaluation of the linear space and node space of these two paths are 
carried on. Comparisons of the properties, such as enclosure, complexity, linkage, visibility, etc. are 
done based on the streetscape of the space. 
To compare the enclosure, physical features such as distance between buildings, proportion of 
street wall, proportion of sky across, proportion of sky ahead, etc. are considered. Then we set 
four levels, each level is corresponding to a score. To describe the transparency, entrance of the 
streetwall, proportion of first floor with windows, proportion of active uses, proportion of street wall 
are calculated. Considering the complexity, density of elements on sidewalk, density of trees, 
furniture, signs, people are recorded. To quantify the linkage, the integration value of the path is 
calculated via UCL depthmap. To compare the visibility, the signs such as special buildings, 
sculptures, etc. in the streetscape are marked and counted.  
Figure 3.  
TopLeft: planned public space 
TopRight: blocks&plots&buildings 
BottomLeft:  
underground public space 
BottomRight:  
public space on the ground floor 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
All indicators of the properties are marked into the corresponding space and aggregated in the 
table. By comparing the data, we find that the indicators of the first path are much higher. The 
space of the first path is not planned or designed by urban designer, it is the result of architects 
made for attractive commercial buildings. That is to say, space urban design gave, in the human 
use level, is a failure. 
STATISTICS AND ANALYSIS 
Statistics show that the value of enclosure of path 1 (used public space) is generally much higher. 
Not only because the distance between the buildings on both sides is relatively small, the average 
value is about 10 meters, the widest part is about 15m, and the narrowest part is about 5 meters. 
But also because of the roof in and between buildings, the sense of enclosure is also strengthened. 
The situation of path 2 (planned public space) is quite different. The distance between the buildings 
is up to 130m. The space is enclosed by one-side buildings and some landscape trees. Between the 
buildings, in addition to the sidewalk (about 6-10m wide), there are also wide roads and green 
landscape isolation belts. Even on the city branch road, the distance between the buildings has 
reached 42-48 meters (nodes P5,11,12).  The reasons exist not only in the large width of the 
roadway, but also in the large distance of buildings setbacks (Tang & Ding, 2018). 
From the perspective of the transparency of the building interface, the value of path 1 is much 
higher. Connecting to the exit of the subway, there are many shops on both sides of the path, all 
open to the street, most of which are accessible and can be seen the internal activities; except for a 
section of the subway entrance and exit, those sections strictly restrict commerce and serve as 
Channel usage (node R11, 12). The interface of Path 2 is not friendly to pedestrians. Most of them 
are closed glass surfaces or walls. Pedestrians can neither see the activities inside the building nor 
enter the building. There are also some parts, in which there is a large height difference between 
the sidewalk and the building’s exterior space. The plot is inaccessible, and the public activities 
occurring at the boundary of the building are completely separated from the sidewalk (node P5). 
From the perspective of the complexity of space, the complexity of Path 1 is mainly reflected in the 
commercial activities with a certain density, but there are not too many varieties of elements in the 
space, and there is no furniture, sculptures, man-made objects, etc. to increase experience in the 
space. Because most of the space is indoors, the landscape changes of the space are similar and 
single, and less light and shadow changes, that cannot bring more fun. The value of complexity of 
Path 2 is not high, the density and types of spatial elements are relatively small. There is often a 
100-meter long path, with almost no changes in the elements beside the road, and the traveling 
process is relatively tedious. But Path 2 is mostly outdoors. The scene will change with the location, 
which increases the complexity of the space to a certain extent. 
Considering the legibility of the space, the legibility is reflected in whether there are obvious visual 
features in the buildings and space, which leaves a deep impression on pedestrians. Most of the 
experience of Path 1 is indoors, and it is visually similar. Except in some special atriums, squares, 
etc., it is almost impossible to tell where you are at a certain point. During the journey of Path 2, 
tall buildings in the distance can often be seen, thus forming a certain recognition. Although nearby 
buildings may not have significant features, the legibility is obviously higher than that of Path 1. 
In terms of spatial connectivity, because they are in the same location, the overall accessibility of 
the two paths is relatively similar. Due to the barrier of expressways, even commercial plots have 
limited connectivity with surrounding plots at the pedestrian level. In other words, residents living in 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
the surrounding areas may not be able to reach this plot if they need to walk more than 500 
meters, so a large number of people arrive at the event venue via subway and car-parking, this 
also caused the lack of crowds on the urban pedestrian of path 2. Before the commercial building 
of plot, A was completed and used, the underground business of plot B, especially the catering, 
was particularly developed and popular. After the use of Plot, A, the business in Plot B quickly 
weakened due to its long distance to the subway.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Figure 4. Public Spatial Quality Analysis_Path1 Real Used Public Space 
1 
2 
3 
5 
9 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
DISCUSSION: URBAN DESIGN METHOD FOR GOOD PUBLIC SPACE  
This makes it necessary to rethink the role of the urban design. We see a certain contradiction. 
Although the outdoor space has advantages in visual richness, due to the lack of spatial enclosure, 
the weak relationship between the pedestrian space and the building, and the low degree of 
No. Imageability Enclosure Transparency Legibility
Presence of
memorable
architectural or
landscape
features
0=none,
1=very few,
2=moderate,
3=several,
0=very poor
sense of
enclosure,
1=moderately
well enclosed,
2=good sense of
enlosure,
3=very good
sense of
enclosure
Permeability of
building facades
on the
streetfront
0=not at all,
1=some parts
somewhat
permeable
2=moderate
permeability
3=very
permeable all
along
Density of
elements in
space providing
sensory
complexity
0=none or very
few
1=few
2=moderate
3=high
Variety of
elements in
space providing
sensory
complexity
0=none
1=very little
2=moderate
3=high
Other furniture
and artifacts in
the space
0=none
1=few
2=several in
many parts of
space
Personalization
of the buildings
on the
streetfront
0=not at all
1=some parts
somwhat
personalized
2=moderate
personalization
Visual and
physical
connection and
openness to
adjacent streets
or spaces
0=almost none
or very poor
1=somewhat
tentative
2=moderately
well connected
3=very well
connected
Design elements
providing focal
points
0=none
1=one
2=two
3=several
Weighting 1 1 1 0.33 0.33 0.33 1 0.5 0.5
Real Public Space
R1 2 2 1 2 1 0 1 3 2
R2 1 3 3 3 2 0 0 2 1
R3 1 3 3 2 2 0 0 2 1
R4 1 1 0 1 1 0 0 1 1
R5 2 2 0 0 0 0 1 1 1
R6 1 2 2 1 1 0 0 1 1
R7 1 3 3 2 2 0 0 1 1
R8 1 3 3 3 2 0 0 1 0
R9 1 3 3 3 2 0 0 2 0
R10 1 2 3 3 2 0 0 2 1
R11 1 2 3 2 2 0 0 1 1
R12 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
R13 1 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 1
R14 1 3 0 1 1 0 0 3 1
R15 1 3 3 2 2 1 1 3 1
R16 2 3 3 3 2 1 1 2 2
R17 1 3 3 2 2 1 1 3 2
R18 1 3 3 2 2 0 1 3 2
Planned Public Space
P1 2 2 0 2 2 0 2 2 2
P2 2 2 0 2 2 2 2 1 2
P3 2 2 0 1 1 0 1 1 2
P4 2 2 0 1 2 1 2 1 1
P5 1 2 0 1 1 0 1 2 0
P6 1 1 1 1 1 0 2 1 0
P7 2 1 0 1 1 0 2 1 1
P8 2 1 0 1 1 0 2 1 0
P9 1 1 0 1 1 0 2 1 1
P10 1 1 0 1 1 1 2 2 1
P11 1 1 1 2 1 0 2 1 1
P12 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 1
P13 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 1
P14 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1
P15 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1
P16 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 1 1
P17 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 1
P18 1 2 2 2 1 1 2 2 1
LinkageComplexity
Figure 6. Statistics of Quality of Public Space 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
interface openness, it cannot attract too many activities. Of course, this is also because the 
population density of the entire region is not high. The indoor public space, because it has sufficient 
commercial functionality and is closely connected to the subway, is more attractive for people's 
activities, but the quality of the indoor public space is not particularly high, especially the 
complexity and legibility etc. 
Research data is both the result and the cause. In modern cities in China, the area between the 
plots has been difficult to have the quality of high-quality public space (for pedestrian). The reason 
is because of the need of the wide roadway, because of the scale of the plot, because of the large 
setbacks, and so on. The bottom-up public space are transferred to the interior of the building, and 
are designed by the developers and architects of the plot for the purpose of building attractive 
activities. This reflects that the spatial attributes still need to be able to fit human scale and activity 
rules to be able to truly attract people. The scale and mode of people introduce the public activities 
that originally belonged to the urban space into the interior of the building. Does the urban design 
of this area need to intervene and how? 
The main goal of urban design is to create a high-quality urban public space for pedestrian. From 
the perspective of urban morphology, the area between plots is no longer the main or only area 
that determines the quality of urban public spaces. Then, how to effectively restrict and control the 
public space in the plot in urban design to ensure quality? If it is not a commercial plot, how to 
maintain the vitality of these plots? These are issues worthy of future discussion. 
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 
This study was financially supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China 
(51708274 and 51538005). Thanks to students of urban design course, Lingyun Zhu, Qiao Feng, 
Yuchen Qiu, Wenshuang Yu, Jingqi Huang, Jingqiu Chen, Caixia Ma and Mingxing Chen for their 
working in the illustrations. 
REFERENCES 
Ewing, R., & Handy, S. (2009). Measuring the unmeasurable: Urban design qualities related to 
walkability. Journal of Urban design, 14(1), 65-84. 
Kropf, K. (2014). Ambiguity in the definition of built form. Urban Morphology, 18(1), 41-57. 
Levy, A. (1999). Urban morphology and the problem of the modern urban fabric: some questions 
for research. Urban Morphology, 3, 79-85. 
Mehta, V. (2014). Evaluating public space. Journal of Urban design, 19(1), 53-88. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Lian Tang, Research Associate Professor, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Nanjing University, 22# 
Hankou Road, Gulou District, China, 210093. tanglian@nju.edu.cn 
 
 
 


Urban public space in new district in China: what urban design can do

Ah, Hwang Sun

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
NECESSITY OF FLEXIBLE URBAN DESIGN IMPLEMENTATION BASED ON 
VERSAILLES SCHOOL OF TYPOLOGICAL MORPHOLOGY THEORY, 
TARGETING SOUTHEAST ASIAN COUNTRIES 
Hwang Sun Ah, Visiting professor, University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh, Viet Nam, Email : 
sahwang38@gmail.com 
ABSTRACT 
Urban form is not just a physical structure but a physical symbol representing ethnicity and 
locality. For this reason, knowing the historicity of a particular country and region and studying 
urban forms are the most fundamental movements to make a sustainable city. If so, we need to 
consider what the most direct action we can do. I would like to answer that question as an "urban 
design" act.  
Therefore, this study intends to conduct research based on the theory of typological morphology 
of the Versailles school which insisted that urban form should be considered as the most basic for 
urban design of the city and should be actively reflected in urban design. In addition, this study 
will examine the direction of urban design needed by Southeast Asian countries, which have 
distinct urban form characteristics due to environmental and historical specificities. 
Keywords: urban morphology, school of Versailles, sense of place urban design, development 
country 
INTRODUCTION  
Modern society is changing very quickly. In particular, cities planned and built according to human 
needs are growing at a faster rate year after year. We live in a material abundance in a city 
where the day changes differently, but there are many things that are missed in the process of 
growth. It is the historicity, uniqueness and identity of the region. However, many developers had 
to keep up with the speed, so things that were not immediately visible were naturally excluded from 
consideration. However, the identity, sense of place, and history of each region cannot be 
overlooked at all because they are the footsteps of human beings and the elements that will serve 
as a stepping stone for continuous growth. This study examined the changes in urban form from the 
past to the present in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam, which has recently undergone rapid urban 
development. And base on that, I would like to describe the role of urban designer and the need 
for urban design to grow into a more sustainable city with their own uniqueness. 
BACKGROUND  
l Purpose of research 
Vietnam has passed the extremely long colonial and war period, and the related agricultural 
industry has developed. War and colonial surrounding areas has not been developed much and 
continues to this day. On the other hand, in some urban areas of Vietnam, rapid urban 
development has been taking place in recent years, and as it is not developed equally with the 
surrounding areas, there is a problem of imbalance between regions. This study does not aim to 
avoid development. However, in the case of developing countries, such as Vietnam, which are still 
lacking urban-related manpower and developing rapidly, I think someone should act as a brake for 
more correct development, rather than rushing to development. In other words, I would like to 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
argue that before developing, we need to look at the city with a wider view, set clear standards for 
areas to be developed and areas to be preserved or preserved, and to be followed.  
 
Figure1. Study area, Cu Chi and Thu Thiem 
l Background Theory 
According to the theory of urban morphology of the Versailles school in France, urban morphology 
does not simply mean a superficial structure, but also implies the locality, sense of place, and 
identity of the space. From this point of view, rapid urban development can lead to the loss of the 
identity of urban spaces and promote the production of space without diversity. The French school 
of Versailles thought that the present is not completely disconnected from the past, and they were 
argue the past provides several different models in the future. In other words, their argument is that 
the elements that make up the form are very sensitive to socio-cultural factors over time, so they can 
be called “morphological developmental” rather than simply “morphological”. In addition to the 
French school, the group that studied morphology is largely the Italian Muratori school and the 
British Conzen school, and the French school researchers are based in many ways on the theory of 
the Conzen school. Among them, the Versailles school in France insisted that the city was a field 
that sociologists, historians, geographers and planners should all consider together. In addition, 
through their research, morphology could be integrated with literature and social sciences. In that 
sense, the Versailles school can be said to be located between Italian and British morphological 
studies, and it is a school that deals with all topics of urban design and urban construction. 
Furthermore, they argue that ‘form’ and ‘type’ are not arbitrarily borrowed images, and that they 
construct concepts that have been proven in the reality of urban construction. It also argues that 
urban forms respond to and adapt to new social, economic and technological environments based 
on each place and time.  
l Method of research 
This study is based on the theory of typology of the Versailles school and argues that 
morphological studies should be able to influence urban design. In many countries (especially in 
developing countries), the focus is on rapid growth and development, and the changes in history 
and society that have been going on in the past have been somewhat neglected. However, as 
Versailles scholars argue about the form of the urban do not simply represent a physical image, but 
have a cause. Therefore, through this study, it is necessary to be developed so that the 
characteristics appearing in the form of a city can be a symbolic type representing the identity and 
location of the region, and this is to be claimed by the urban designers. 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
This research’s study areas are Cu Chi and ThuThiem. Thu Thiem was a wetland that has not been 
developed at all in the past, but is currently being developed to be used as a new central business 
district in Ho Chi Minh City. And Cu Chi have a rubber tree plantation 30 km away from Ho Chi 
Minh City. We compared and analyzed the degree of urban form change in farm areas that have 
been continued since then, and further suggested the direction of urban design to be carried out in 
order to grow into a sustainable city in the future based on historical facts and morphological 
changes in each region. 
FINDINGS 
In order to analyze the urban morphology of the study site, historical observation and cadastral 
maps were required in the past, but due to the characteristics of the country of society, 
Vietnam,(Socialist stare) there were many limitations in obtaining the maps. Therefore, using 
Google Maps and satellite photos, we visualized the urban form by filed and streets from 1985 to 
2018, but in both regions, from 1985 to 1995, there was no change in shape. So I used only from 
1995 to 2015 The map, it was analyzed and visualized every 5 years. I also looked at how each 
region has historically changed. 
l Cu Chi  
- Background of History 
The Cu Chi region is a famous memorial region in Vietnam's history. The Cu Chi tunnel is an 
underground cave created to hide weapons during French colonial era. It was first made from 
1948 to 1954, and the second was dug up 200 km in 1967 during the Vietnam War, and today it 
is reached. At one point, it had a capacity of 20,000, and the area was in ruins due to US 
bombing and spraying of anti-inflammatory agents. Rubber trees were planted after struggling to 
revive these areas and remove deadly toxins held by latent dead agents deep in the ground. Since 
then, rubber trees have formed lush fields, and high-quality rubber has become a means of living 
for the Vietnamese people. Currently, the Cu Chi Tunnel and rubber tree forest has become the 
center and has become a famous tourist destination, but the surrounding area has not been 
developed significantly. 
 
Figure2. Area of Cu Chi in 1913 and 2020, Image source: Economic History Malaya 
- Process of Morphological change  
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
Figure3. Cu Chi area morphology change 
As above, the degree of morphological change was examined by drawing through the Google 
Map of the Cu Chi region. As a result, large morphological changes could not be observed for 20 
years from 1995 to 2015, and there was no significant change compared to 1985, which was 
much earlier. When looking at the shape of the 'street', which plays the most important role in 
shape change, it wasn't until about 2015 that it was found that the streets expanded around the Cu 
Chi tunnel, but there was no big  change in the shape of the parcel. This area is a very significant 
area in Vietnam's history, and it is still closely related to livelihoods. The Cu Chi region may be 
easy to guess from the past, since there has been no significant morphological change from the 
past to the present. However, it is a place that is often visited by outsiders as well as a tourist 
attraction, so it is necessary to make the historical significance and location of the region more 
clearly known. Therefore, rather than the development where the form of the Cu Chi region that 
has been continued so far can disappear, it is more sustainable to approach the urban design 
level, to distinguish between the place to be preserved and the place to be developed, and to 
emphasize the locality.  
l Thu Thiem 
- Background of History 
Thu Thiem was one of the most densely populated areas in Ho Chi Minh City until it was approved 
for redevelopment, and includes a central old market established in 1751. Beginning in 2002, 
14,000 to 15,000 households have been evicted from the development site for 10 years and 
resettled. The master plan for the site began in 1998, and in 2003 American architect Hideo 
Sasaki was bidded on an international design competition for the plan. Thu Thiem is currently an 
area to replace District 1, the central area of Ho Chi Minh City, and in 2011, an underwater tunnel 
connecting District 1 and District 2 was opened. 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
Figure4. Area of Thu Thiem in 1954 and 2020 
- Process of Morphological change 
 
Figure5. Thu Thiem area morphology change 
The change in the shape of the Thu Thiem region is larger than that of the Cu Chi region. In the 
past, the area of Thu Thiem was a residential dense area, but it was an area that was repeatedly 
flooded when it rained. Accordingly, the Vietnamese government recently built an embankment to 
solve the drainage problem of the north-south canal adjacent to the region of Thu Thiem, and 
redeveloped it as a center for new residential and business facilities. A levee was built to improve 
accessibility to the military (existing center). However, if you look at the street that have been 
subdivided for each using purpose, newly built buildings, and cleanly polished roads, you will 
never find the urban form of Thu Thiem in the past. Rapid development is need, but what is the 
characteristic of Thu Thiem, and shouldn't it be oriented toward development that reflects the 
historical background or cause of those forms? Residents who have long lived in Thu Theim have 
been paid off at the government level and left their homes. They must have known the 
characteristics of the region of Thu Thiem better than anyone else. And now the area is being 
developed by a group of foreign architects. In order to develop a specific city as a sustainable 
place, the first priority is to protect its uniqueness and historicity. And it is contained in the physical 
element that is visible, that is, in form. As such, it is a Thu Thiem design that has already been 
planned and developed in a sophisticated manner, but in the urban design process, we will have to 
find a way to preserve the unique identity of Thu Thiem. 
 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
CONCLUSIONS 
This study was started based on the argument that morphological theory does not just end in 
theory, but needs to be actively considered in the actual urban design process. In my home 
country, Republic of Korea, I've seen firsthand how indiscriminate development focused on speed is 
disolate up the city. Therefore, I hope that Vietnam, which is growing rapidly, will not take steps to 
develop urban like republic of Korea. The form visible in the city is very simple. However, the 
implications contained therein are never simple, and even if the form changes, it is not entirely new. 
So, if you want to develop a city, you need to revisit at least once what my city, what the meaning 
of my local form is, and where it has historical value.  
In addition, it is necessary to aim for 'flexible urban design', which does not mean multi-
functionality. The site designated by the urban planning has a limited function. However, in modern 
society, “land” needs to be used as an “open space” that can be freely used by more people than 
given a designated title. Rather, many separate and using parcels of land may obscure the history 
and identity of the space. Also, some scholars sometimes argue that 'typeization' rather lacks 
flexibility. However, typifying the form is an act that focuses on the historicity from the past to the 
present. And it makes help we how to develop urban in the future. For this reason, I think it is 
necessary to have a flexible urban design process to recognize the identity and sense of place on 
the form of the city that is already typified even if the use is designated.  
Furthermore, I think urban designers should be able to persuade and lead residents and people in 
all these processes. In other words, proper urban design is an act of creating a uniqueness of the 
region based on not only the visually visible urban form, but also the invisible identity, sense of 
place, and historicity. 
The morphological analysis process in this study is very simple and not very deep. However, 
starting with this study, I plan to continue to conduct research to find a way for urban morphology 
and analysis to be directly linked to the urban design process In particular, I plan in the next 
research to take a closer look at what morphological characteristics can be seen in colonial 
countries, what changes in the shape of port space related to pillage, and how they have been 
redeveloped or maintained now. I believe that the urban form was not created at one time, but is 
itself a history and a locality. Furthermore, the area can be sustainable when it is based on urban 
planning and design. 
 
 
REFERENCES 
Castex, J., Jean Chales D. and Philloppe P., (1997), ‘Formes urbaines ; de l’ilot a la barre’ 
(Dunod , Paris,) 
Duany A. Plater-Zyberk E, (2001) ‘Suburban nation : The rise of sprawl and the decline of the 
American dream (North point press, San Francisco, CA) 
Glen, B. (2009) ‘Urban form and social sustainability : the role of density and housing type, 
Environment and planning B : Planning and design 36, 30-48 
Haughton, G. (1997) ‘Developing sustainable urban development models’, Cities 14(4), 189-195 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Hildebrand, F. (1999) Designing the City, Toward a more sustainable urban form (Spon press, 
New York, U.S.A) 
Karen A. Franck. (2012) Types in Architecture and Design (Nanam, Seoul, Korea) 
Lefebre, H., (1926) Qu’est-ce que l’urbanisme? (Que sais-je, Paris, France) 
Lori Liane Long (1998) Present day effects of French colonization on former French colonies, 
(University of Tennessee, Knoxville) 
Mahyar A. (1999) ‘Non-place and placelessness as narratives of loss : rethinking the notion of 
place’, Journal of urban design 4, 179-193 
Merlin, Pierre, E. ‘d;Alfonso and F. Choay, eds. (1998), Morphologie urbaine et parcellaire 
(Universitaires de Vincennes, Paris, France) 
Moudon Anne, V. (1997) ‘Urban morphology as an emerging interdisciplinary field’, Urban 
Morphology 1, 3-10 
PADDI(2012), How can urban planning in Vietnam be more effective? The case of Ho Chi Minh 
City (Lyon Urban Planning Agency, Vietnam) 
Scheer, B. C. (2010) The evolution of urban form: typology for planners and architects (American 
Planning Association, Chicago, IL). 
Todorovic, D. (2008) ‘Gestalt principles’, Scholarpedia (doi:10.4249/scholarpedia.5345) 
accessed 21 July 2019 
Whitehand, J. W. R., Gu, K., Conzen, M. P. and Whitehand, S. M. (2014) ‘The typological 
process and the morphological period: a cross-cultural assessment’, Environment and Planning B: 
Planning and Design 41, 512-33.  
Yosef Rafeq, J. (2006) ‘Sustainable Urban Forma’, Journal of planning education and research  
26, 38-52 
 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Hwang Sun Ah, Visiting Professor, International Training Institute, University of Architecture Ho Chi Minh,  196 
Pasteur Street, Ward6, District3, HCMC, Viet Nam. Sahwang38@gmail.com  


Necessity of flexible urban design implementation based on Versailles school of typological morphology theory, targeting Southeast Asian countries

Kai, Xu

Yongjie, Cai

Qin, Zhang

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
1) From Economic Symbol to Livable Urban Future: Repairing Urban Form of 
Lujiazui CBD in Shanghai 
 
XU Kai, associate professor of Architecture, Tongji University, China 
CAI Yongjie (*), professor of Architecture, Tongji University, China 
ZHANG Qin, doctor candidate of Architecture, Tongji University, China 
ABSTRACT 
As a celebrated symbol of the economic growth of Shanghai, Lujiazui CBD boasts a highly 
congested cluster of super towers, as well as the astonishing speed to realize all towers in a short 
period of 20 years. However, its urban form, characterized by low building coverage, loosely laid 
road net, large plots, and monotonous functions, leads to an indifferent environment that is 
particularly unfriendly to pedestrians. This paper introduces an urban design studio, conducted by 
students and professors from Tongji University, which take repairing of Lujiazui’s urban form as its 
mission. The result of this studio shows that repairing is still feasible when development intensity is 
added, which may result in more structuralized urban form characterized by 1) much higher 
building coverage (density); 2) clear and various urban block forms; 3) denser street net with 
street-walls in human scale; 4) cooperative multiple stakeholders in blocks; 5) multiple functions 
mixed in the plot. 
BACKGROUND 
China's economic rise has been a miracle. Together with 
the star-studded manufacturing factories outside each 
Chinese city，those CBDs erected in cores of selected 
cities are spatial carrier of such economic rise. Lujiazui of 
Shanghai is an area built for such purpose. As China's first 
urban area planned as CBD, after 20 years of rapid 
development, Lujiazui has become an urban area filled 
with numerous high-rise buildings. If you consider the 
speed of urban construction and the iconic image it has 
provided, Lujiazui can indeed be regarded as an amazing 
urban work. In the other hand, it also successfully acts as 
a place for highly congested companies and working 
forces. (Figure 1) 
The simple and reproducible development method, as well 
as the cooperation between the state and private investors 
in urban development, are the two major engines that 
enable urban areas to be developed at a high speed. This 
is the most important reason why the method developed 
through Lujiazui has been widely adopted in other cities 
throughout China. To some extent, the success of the 
Figure 1. Aerial View of Lujiazui, X K Peng, 2019 
Fig 2 Low quality public space in Lujiazui. Left: 
Ground level are mainly occupied by cars, while 
people has to stay on elevated terrace. Right: The 
Century Avenue is actually an arterial traffic road 
which cuts through the center 
XU Kai, 2020 
 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Shanghai economy contributed to the success of Lujiazui, not the other way around. 
However, critical views have appeared in the media and academic field from time to time in terms 
of its monotonous function, isolated space, and bad user's feelings, mainly focusing on its traffic 
congestion, poor walking experience, and low vitality at night ( Gong, .D. Y., 2015,2019, Cai, Y. 
J. 2019) (Figure 2). Among many topics, urban form is a key theme to be discussed, and it seems 
that the inappropriate urban form of Lujiazui is responsible for many interrelated problems 
mentioned before.  
This paper proposes a perspective that the urban form of Lujiazui should be carefully evaluated 
and significantly repaired. Only after such repairing, can Lujiazui’s physical setting be suitable for 
a more sophisticated urban vision, being a home not only for congested financial industries, but 
also for newly rising innovative industries, commercial activities, cultural activities and living. This 
paper will introduces an urban design studio conducted by students and professors from Tongji 
University in 2018, which takes repairing of Lujiazui’s urban form as it mission. The virtual 
architectural drawings drafted by students do not point to actual construction but rather show our 
views and a possible version of the city’s future.   
THE EVOLVING CONCEPT OF “CBD” AND DIFFERENT MORPHOLOGICAL 
TYPOLOGIES 
Planning new urban areas for the gathering of certain functions is relatively new in human history 
and has namely taken place after Modernism. The well-known CBDs such as Wall Street and Times 
Square in Manhattan, New York, and the Chicago Loop, were not specially planned for the 
gathering of the financial industry. They grew into CBDs because of financial industries naturally 
gathered in certain urban center areas. Characteristics of such urban forms are identified as an 
ultra-high building coverage (density), ultra-high development intensity (FAR), and a dense public 
space network with streets as the main carrier. From a functional point of view, office and retail 
functions serve as a majority while other functions, such as hotels and housing, coexist. All of this is 
operated with the support of highly developed infrastructures, such as interconnected underground 
spaces and public transportation.  
Since the 1960s, there has been a wave of new CBD 
development. Typical examples are La Défense in Paris 
and Canary Wharf in London, developed in the 1970s 
and the 1980s respectively. Compared with the first-
generation CBD, the building coverage (density) of these 
CBDs is much lower, and the development intensity is far 
less than that of the first-generation CBD. The main form 
of public space is squares and parks, while the layout of 
streets net is not common. The monotonous function, 
mainly occupied by offices, is the main problem 
criticized by media and scholars (Edwards, B. C. 2013, 
Butler, T. 2007). In terms of infrastructure, both cases have 
a large amount of investment in their early development 
stage, combined with underground garages, 
underground fast lanes, subways, as well as integrated 
drainage & supply systems (Van Acker, M. 2009).These 
technologies and considerations have indeed played a 
Figure 3. Urban Fabrics of the 4 conceptual schemes 
in late 1990s， redrawn by author based on original 
master plans 
 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
role. In addition, these new urban areas look very different from the first generation CBD: they are 
more open, more convenient, and more ecological. 
In the early stage of Lujiazui's planning, there were intense discussions on the urban form (SUN, S. 
W). At that time, many well-known architects from around the world put forward proposals (Figure 
3). In the implementation plan, from the perspective of urban form and function configuration, 
Lujiazui can be regarded as a low-level version of the second-generation CBD. It is built with even 
and low building coverage and lower FAR, although the height of the building is higher, for a more 
extinguished visual image. With an extraordinarily strong image as a future metropolitan city, 
Lujiazui has only 1/4 building occupation (density) and 1/3 FAR compared to Manhattan (using 
data of Times Square as a reference). Lujiazui shares characteristics of the second-generation CBD 
in its wide open space and single function (Figure 4). However, due to insufficient investment in the 
initial stage of development, little consideration was given to urban infrastructure and underground 
space. For example, there was only one subway line with single station, and underground garages 
in plots are isolated to each other. As a result, a large number of motor vehicles were using the 
roads, further lowering the walkability at ground level.  
Although it seems the construction of Lujiazui has been completed, from the perspective of urban 
development, it must continue for a long time and contain function and people. Only in this way 
can it retain its charm as an urban area for a long time and continue to play its role as part of the 
city center. Therefore, repairing and enhancing its urban form is necessary. The 2 following aspects 
are considered: 
1) From the perspective of the evolvement of the global CBD, the first-generation CBD has 
undergone continuous urban renewal processes and is still radiating great vitality, 
becoming the preferred location for various urban economies. These cases not only 
serve as CBD but also assume the identity of a city’s commercial districts, incorporated 
with characteristic residential function and various public services. Alternatively, the 
second-generation CBD has some problems, which have been criticized by the 
academic community and the public in terms of low vitality and attraction. Determining 
the cause of differences between the two generations demands retrospections and 
careful research. As an incomplete form of second-generation CBD, Lujiazui must be 
reexamined. 
2) From the perspective of economic development, the future CBD should be more than a 
home for financial industries, but also for newly rising innovative industries, 
commercial activities, cultural activities and living. In one word, it shall be more 
“urban”. The form characterized by “cluster of single towers”is difficult to such vision. 
The CBD in most Chinese cities is remarkably close to the city center. They should all 
become the central area of the city to accommodate more diverse functions and 
activities.  
REPAIRING LUJIAZUI’S URBAN FORM: AN URBAN DESIGN EXPERIMENT 
From 2017 to 2019, we hosted three graduation design studios in the Department of Architecture, 
Tongji University, Shanghai, in which the repairing of Lujiazui’s urban form, under the above 
background and vision, is taken as the subject. We intentionally avoid some practical and technical 
discussions and guide students to discover problems and make bold assumptions in a relatively 
ideal environment (Figure 5). The subject first presets the following conditions: 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
2) Development intensity: The FAR of Lujiazui is to be increased from the current 3.5 as 
much as possible (as reference, the FAR of New York Times Square is 11.7, Chicago 
Loop 11.2 and and Canary Wharf 6.3). The specific method for achieving the purpose 
is to find potentials to redevelop existing plots, while not dismantling existing buildings 
(especially office towers). 
3) Urban functions: At present, office functions are dominant. However, in the future, 
office, residential, retail, commercial, and service facilities will each occupy a certain 
share. 
Infrastructure: It is preset that there will be more 
powerful infrastructure support in the future, such as 
multiple subway lines with more stations, 
interconnected underground spaces, etc. We also 
propose to move some main roads of transit motor 
vehicles that have had a great impact on the area 
underground, to further reduce the number of 
vehicles on the ground. What is a "good city form" is 
the first question we ask. Students are asked to read 
classical literatures about urban form, including those 
by Camilo Sitte, Kevin Lynch, Christopher Alexander 
Rob, Krier and Leon Krier, as well as research 
central areas of many cases in the world, including 
the first- and second-generation CBDs, and make 
comparative analysis from multiple aspects. The 
macro analysis content includes intensity (FAR), 
density (building’s land occupation), distribution of 
buildings, the height of buildings, organization of 
transport and public space, etc. In middle- to micro-
scale, students are asked to analyze the form of the 
street and the form of the block, examining 
footprints, land use patterns, and building volume. 
Based on a certain understanding of the basic 
constitutional principles of urban form, we discussed 
the current situation of Lujiazui and possible form 
repair methods, and propose the following three 
strategies:  
n Significantly increase the building density in the 
whole area 
The overall building footprint coverage (density) in 
most reference cases is higher than 50%, and the 
density inside the blocks is even higher. The overall 
density in Lujiazui is only 18%, and the density of 
general building blocks is generally 40%-50%. Most 
of the land is completely vacant or only loosely built. 
We believe that although low density makes a city 
area look more open or ecological, it is blurring 
 
Figure 4. Comparison of urban fabrics among cases, 
Resources: author 
 
Figure 5. Repaired Lujiazui, model photo credit from 
the author  
 
Figure 6. Urban Fabrics before and after the repair, 
Resources: author 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
urban space and making gathering vitality difficult. 
By increasing the construction and expanding the 
footprint of the buildings, the urban form of Lujiazui 
is optimized. From the final results, the overall 
density of the urban area has increased to about 
31.3%, which has achieved a great change in the 
urban fabric (Figure 6).There are two specific 
methods. One is to continue to increase the density 
in the building plots. By filling the blanks with the 
building volume, the existing building functions and 
spaces are expanded, and the overall shape of the 
street block is shaped. Another method is to fill the 
unnecessary central green space. According to our 
case research, there is very little possibility for large-
scaled open green space to sit right in the core area 
of the CBD. It may look good but at the sacrifice of 
economic value and urban vitality. We filled this 
space and transformed it into a high-density 
commercial and culture area composed of numerous 
buildings with small volumes. 
By increasing the density to achieve optimized urban 
form, the FAR of Lujiazui can be greatly increased 
from 3.5 to 4.6, meaning that a lot of new 
development space can be added to make the 
further development of the city economically 
feasible.  
n Establish public space system composed 
mainly of street network 
The dense and rich public space network is a 
common feature of good urban centers because it is 
the public space that undertakes various economic 
and social interactions, making the multi-functional 
common development possible. Lujiazui is very 
lacking in public space. Most of the external space 
of the building is now occupied by motorways, 
private spaces, and useless green spaces. Based on 
building density increase, a public space network 
formed by dense streets and urban nodes is formed. 
In addition to the consideration of the planar shape 
of the network, important considerations also include 
enhancing the shape of these spaces and the 
planning of supportive functions (Figure 7 and 
Figure 8). 
n Establish block structure as “cell” of urban 
space 
 
Figure 7. Planned public space system, Resources: 
author 
 
Figure 8. Reshape the space of streets, Resources: 
author  
 
Figure 9. Combination of new and old volumes, 
Resources: author 
 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
A Block is the basic unit of urban spatial structure. 
The current structure of Lujiazui’s block type is 
strongly influenced by classic modernism, that is, 
buildings set back from roads and are isolated from 
the urban environment. In such situations, Lujiazui is 
a collection of luxurious buildings, without the 
integrity of being an urban area. This is almost a 
common problem in modernist cities. Whether it is 
from the case of our research, or from the advice of 
researchers, a perimeter block type, which provides 
much better spatial support to street, is suggested. 
We plan medium-sized volumes along the periphery 
of the block, and then connect it with the current 
tower building to form the layout of the block. These 
newly constructed buildings can meet the space 
requirements of newly added residential, 
commercial, and innovative offices, and provide 
architectural interfaces and functional support for 
the city's public spaces. They are the material basis 
for forming good street and public space nodes 
(Figure 9, Figure 10) 
As a result, our urban design adds 1.5 million square meters floor areas to the existing built 
objects, creating a much more structuralized urban fabric characterized by 1) much higher building 
coverage; 2) clear and various urban block forms; 3) denser street net with street-walls in human 
scale; 4) cooperative multiple stakeholders in blocks; 5) multiple functions mixed in the plot. 
OUTLOOKS 
We always believe that good urban forms have things in common, which is fully proved in our case 
analysis. That is, they must provide space suitable for walking and standing, smaller-scale streets, 
beautiful buildings that intimate to people, as well as various functions coexist in the urban area. 
Repairing the urban form of Lujiazui is a virtual teaching subject, but it is facing a practical 
problem. That is, problems regarding low vitality, unfriendly urban environment, low adaptability 
to various industries, and low flexibility for the future, arise from time to time, particularly in urban 
areas that are newly completed in construction. Such problems include both the general problems 
of modern cities, as well as some problems with Chinese characteristics.  
In urban areas where construction has been completed, the realization of a "good urban form" is 
not only a question of what to achieve but also a question of "how to achieve". In the new urban 
form, there is both already built content and newly added content, which together will form a 
complete spatial structure and a better picture in the future. 
REFERENCES 
Alexander, C. (1999). The origins of pattern theory: The future of the theory, and the generation of 
a living world. IEEE software, 16(5), 71-82. 
 
Figure 10. Morphological analysis of repaired blocks, 
Resources: author 
 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Butler, T. (2007). Re‐urbanizing London Docklands: Gentrification, suburbanization or new 
urbanism?. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 31(4), 759-781. 
Cai, Y. J. (2019), Reconfiguration of new city’s core: an experimental design studio on Lujiazui [J], 
Urban Design, 2019(05): 50-57 
Edwards, B. C. (2013). London Docklands: urban design in an age of deregulation. Elsevier. 
Gong, D. Y. (2019), Another Lujiazui, Shanghai Oberser (Shanghai): 
https://www.jfdaily.com/news/detail?id=149153  
Gong, D. Y. (2015), Virtual Lujiazui: A regeneration plan, Liberation Monday 16. Oct.2015 
(Shanghai)  
Krier, R., & Rowe, C. (1979). Urban space. London: Academy editions. 
Lynch, K. (1984). Good city form. MIT press. 
Sirte, C., Collins, G. R., & Collins, C. (1986). Camillo Sitte: The Birth of Modern City Planning. 
SUN, S. W. Urban Core and public space: Planning review on Shanghai Lujiazui[J]. Urban 
Planning, 2006(08):66-74. 
Van Acker, M. (2009). Re-Tracing Urban Design Infrastructure as a Mode of Urban Design. Urban 
Design Research: Method and Application, 3, 235. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Cai Yongjie, professor of Architecture, Director of Architecture Faculty, Tongji University, 1239, Siping Road, 
Yangpu District, Shanghai, China,200092 
yongjiecai@163.com 
 


From economic symbol to livable urban future: repairing urban form of Lujiazui CBD in Shanghai

Hao, Haizhao

Pezzetti, Laura

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
MEASURING SPATIAL MORPHOLOGY SYNERGY BETWEEN OLD AND 
NEW AREAS IN FENGHUANG TOWN (SHAANXI) 
Haizhao Hao, Ph.D. candidate of College of Architecture, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, 
China 
Laura Pezzetti, Associate Professor of Architectural Design and Urban Composition, Politecnico di Milano, 
Italy 
ABSTRACT 
During last century’s evolution of the spatial form of the ancient town, the problem of uncoordinated 
development appeared, such as unbalanced land use layout, uncontrolled spatial order and 
inconsistent typological development. In the existing research, there are many quantitative studies 
on the spatial form in historical villages and towns, but relatively little qualitative and quantitative 
research on the spatial morphological principles and potential synergy between the old and new 
areas of the ancient town. The adaptation of historical towns needs to meet both the needs of 
preservation of the traditional structures and their generative matrixes and new appropriate  spatial 
connection with the context formed by new regions. Only if based on understanding of generative 
rules of existing morphologies and their historic overlapping, the measurement of spatial 
morphology synergy between the old and new areas of the ancient town can provide an assessment 
of urban adaptation. Its scientific measurement can integrate and manage the spatial coordination 
strategy. 
Fenghuang Town is typical and representative in the ancient towns of southern Shaanxi. The synergy 
measurement method of the old and new areas of the ancient town is mainly based on the old area's 
space form as a standard. This paper quantitatively analyzes the protection status of the old area 
and the inheritance status of the new area, and mainly measures the coordinated situation of spatial 
form from the spatial boundary, land layout, street, courtyard. Based on the integration of 
qualitative analysis and measurement results, a synergy development strategy of spatial patterns is 
proposed. 
Keywords: new and old area, measuring spatial morphology synergy, Fenghuang town 
INTRODUCTION  
In recent years, with the improvement of China's urbanization level and the rise of tourism in ancient 
towns, the spatial expansion of most historical and cultural villages and towns is obvious (Wei 
Fengqun et al. 2016). In the process of spatial expansion, the new and old area in ancient towns 
will have collaborative or non coordinated development. In actual situation, the frequency of the 
latter is relatively high (Peng Jun, 2010). The international charter and domestic government policies 
have gradually paid more attention to the coordinated development of new and old area in ancient 
town. From the perspective of the overall spatial evolution in the ancient towns, the new and old 
area have shown a process from synergy to gradual uncoordinated development. The evaluation of 
the spatial coordination degree of the new and old areas is the basis of the spatial coordination 
strategy. Through the evaluation of the coordination degree of the new and old areas, it is helpful to 
maintain its traditional pattern and historical features, correctly handle the relationship between 
economic, social and historical and cultural heritage protection, and promote the coordinated 
development of new and old town space(Duan Jin et al. 2019). 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
BACKGROUND  
Fenghuang Town is located in the southeast of Zhashui County, Shangluo, Shaanxi. It is located at 
the confluence of the Zao River, the Shui Digou River and the Shechuan River, and it is an important 
trading town connecting the Yangtze River system and the Yellow River system south of the Qinling 
Mountains. The local specialties from northern China are transported to Fenghuang Town through 
the horse caravan and manpower, and then transported along the Han River to Hankou via the 
waterway. Jiangnan's silk and rice were also transported to Fenghuang Township by waterway, and 
then over the Qinling Mountains from the road to Xi'an. With the shrinking of water transportation 
and the improvement of highway traffic, Fenghuang  Town gradually lost its former prosperity. But 
many old workshops, old craftsmanship and more than one hundred ancient residences from the 
Ming and Qing Dynasties are still preserved. They are gathered on Fengzhen Old Street, and are 
called "living fossils of Jianghan Ancient Town" by historians. Fenghuang Town connects Guanzhong 
and Hubei through mule roads and Hanshui. It is an important wharf connecting Xi'an and Wuhan. 
It is typical and representative in ancient towns in southern Shaanxi(Sun Zhiqing, 2017). In recent 
years, the construction land of Fenghuang Town has grown rapidly, and problems such as 
uncoordinated townscape and poor residential environment have appeared(Chen Wenbin, 2018). 
How to promote the coordinated development of the old and new areas of Fenghuang town needs 
to be further analyzed combined with the evaluation results of the new and old areas coordination. 
METHODOLOGY  
Synergy refers to the transformation of different systems from disordered structures to ordered 
structures in time, space, and function(Luo Yan et al. 2013). It believes that the coordination among 
subsystems can form a macro motion form which is better than the sum of all parts. The spatial 
coordination of ancient towns mainly refers to the promotion of the coordinated development of 
various spatial system elements. The spatial coordination of the new and old areas is to promote the 
development of the old and new areas in the ancient town from the disordered and differentiated 
state to the orderly and coordinated state. Due to the different construction years, spatial layout, 
building materials, and construction methods of architecture in the old and new areas, there must be 
some differences in the spatial elements of the new and old areas(Huang Liwei et al. 2018). The 
coordinated development of the space in the ancient town should not only satisfy the demands of 
current development, but also realize the inheritance of traditional construction wisdom and achieve 
the purpose of continuation of history, reality and future. From this perspective, the essence of 
measuring spatial morphology synergy between old and new areas in ancient town is the qualitative 
and quantitative analysis of the continuation of various spatial elements of traditional building wisdom 
in traditional and modern regions and their current adaptability. Drawing on Kevin Lynch's five 
elements of urban image and M.R.C. Conzen's three morphological elements, this paper mainly 
evaluates the spatial form of the ancient town from four aspects: boundary, land, streets, and 
architecture .  
In this paper, considering the relevant research, the availability of indicators and the characteristics 
of the development of the ancient town, the indicators are selected to evaluate the spatial morphology 
coordination of the new and old areas in Fenghuang Town. The evaluation of the index system mainly 
adopts the single factor evaluation method. Multiple indicators are selected for each dimension, and 
the weight of the indicators is 1. The author makes a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the 
changes in each indicator. According to the comprehensive superposition of various indicators in 
each dimension, the overall development status of each dimension is obtained.(Tab. 1) 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
 
Table 1 Index system of measuring spatial morphology synergy between old and new areas in Fenghuang town (Shaanxi) 
Content Index Indicator interpretation 
Boundary 
Border shape 
The higher the similarity of the boundary shape of the construction land 
formed in the early stage, the higher the degree of coordination. 
Shape analysis index 
S=	 !
"#.%&'√&)#.%*
∗ # &
+,
，P is the perimeter, A is the area,   is the aspect 
ratio, and the minimum value of S is 1. The closer the value is to 1, the 
closer the boundary shape is to the ellipse. Taking the shape analysis 
index as the standard during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the closer it 
is, the better the synergy is. 
Compactness 
Compactness=2√𝜋𝐴 ∕ 𝑃(P is the circumference, A is the area). The larger 
the value, the more compact the boundary shape. Taking the 
compactness as the standard during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the 
closer it is, the better the coordination status. 
Land use 
Land organization 
The more the land can meet the current economic development 
demands, the better the coordination of the land organization. 
Building height Taking aesthetics as the standard,rich levels of building height are more 
highly coordinated. 
Land use balance 
Land use balance= H/Hm=-∑ 𝑃𝑖 𝑙𝑜𝑔 𝑃𝑖 / 𝑙𝑜𝑔 𝑁-. , N is the number of land 
use types. Pi is the ratio of a certain land type to construction land. The 
balance is between 0-1. The smaller the value, the weaker the land use 
homogeneity and the higher the coordination degree of the ancient 
town. 
Street 
Street aspect ratio 
D (average building height along the street)/H (average street width). 
Taking the old area's aspect ratio as the standard, the closer the new 
area's aspect ratio is to the old area's aspect ratio, the better the degree 
of synergy. 
Correlation between global 
integration and local 
integration 
Calculated by spatial syntax software, the closer the correlation (R²) 
between the two is to 1, the better the coordination of the road network. 
Courtyard 
The direction of the longest 
side of the smallest 
circumscribed rectangle of the 
courtyard 
The higher the direction consistency, the higher the overall coordination 
Similarity of the form 
combined with the main 
courtyard plane 
The higher of similarity, the higher of spatial form coordination 
The similarity between the 
materials, colors, roof forms of 
the buildings in different 
courtyards and the old area 
The higher of similarity, the higher of spatial form coordination 
FINDINGS  
In terms of borders, the old streets in the Ming and Qing Dynasties appeared as "S" shapes. With 
the growth of construction land, affected by the Shechuan River, Shuidigou River and Zao River, the 
boundary is broken into multiple groups, but under the constraints of Fenghuang Mountain and 
Yingpan Mountain, the whole is still in the shape of "S". In the process of evolution, the boundary is 
elongated or widened, but the shape of "S" is still maintained. Judging from the change in the 
compactness of the boundary, the shape index of the boundary continues to increase, and the 
compactness of the "S" shape gradually decreases. 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
In terms of land use, from the perspective of the nature of the land, the old streets in the Ming and 
Qing Dynasties mainly included inns, grocery stores, banks, pharmacies and other shops. The land 
was mainly commercial finance and residential land. At the same time, there were temples built in 
and around the town . The format in the old street has evolved into accommodation, catering and 
specialty agricultural products sales in modern. The surrounding educational institutions, 
administrative management, commercial finance, and residential land are gradually increasing. 
Some temples in the town have been destroyed. Compared with the past, land use in the current 
situation can better meet the current development demands of tourism and modern agriculture. From 
the perspective of building height, it has the characteristics of low old street and high surrounding. 
Compared with the Ming and Qing Dynasties, the combination of building height is more abundant 
and the coordination is higher. Judging from the analysis results of the land use balance degree, the 
mixing degree of land is gradually increasing. 
In terms of streets, from the aspect ratio of different streets, the main street in the Ming and Qing 
dynasties was around 1.0, giving people a comfortable and intimate feeling. The width and height 
ratio of S307 Provincial Highway in the north is between 1-1.5, and the sense of enclosure between 
the road and the building is weakened. The width and height ratio of the main street in the western 
township is between 0.6-1, and the streets and lanes have a certain sense of depression. From the 
perspective of road integration, the correlation coefficient between the overall integration degree 
and the local integration degree of the road network gradually decreases, indicating that the 
coordination degree of the road network gradually decreases. (Table 2) 
Table 2 Synergy status of road network in different periods 
Time Global integration Partial integration Correlation（R²） 
Ming 
and 
Qing 
dynasty    
 
2007 
   
2012 
   
2019 
   
 
  
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
In terms of courtyards, from the direction of the longest side of the smallest circumscribed rectangle 
of different courtyards, the courtyards in the plots around the Ming and Qing Old Streets form a 
vertical relationship with the contour of Yingpan Mountain. The courtyards in the new towns in the 
west and new streets in the east form a vertical relationship with the road as a whole. The overall 
coordination of the ancient town is low. Judging from the courtyards in different positions, the 
courtyards in the Ming and Qing Dynasties still maintained the original three- or two-court unit 
structure. Judging from the courtyards in different positions, the courtyards in the Ming and Qing 
Dynasties still maintained the original three- or two-court unit structure. Between 1970 and 2000, 
houses were mostly in the shape of a "one". After 2000, most of them were newly built communities. 
The materials and combinations of houses used in different periods vary greatly. Over time, the 
overall coordination of the ancient town gradually decreased.( Tab. 3) 
Table 3 Characteristics of courtyards in different periods 
Position Old street Old street in the east 
Old streets in the 
south and 
northwest 
Both sides of S307 
Provincial Highway 
Unit courtyard, newly 
built residential area 
Time Ming and Qing Dynasties 1912-1949 1970-1980 After 1990 After 2000 
Charact
eristics 
The front hall along 
the street is a shop, 
and the main 
entrance is a 
removable wooden 
board. The 
foundation of the 
house is made of 
stone. The walls are 
made of rammed 
earth and stone. 
The ground of the 
patio is paved with 
stones. 
The houses along 
the street are 
shops or living 
rooms. The walls 
are made of 
earth and stone. 
The main 
entrance is a 
wooden swing 
door. 
The walls are 
rammed earth. 
The house is 
supported by 
wooden pillars. 
There are multiple 
floors along the 
street, shops on the 
ground floor and 
residences on the 
upper floor. The 
house is a brick or 
concrete structure. 
The facade was 
renovated around 
2011. 
A building consists of 
multiple units. 
Picture 
     
CONCLUSIONS 
Through the measurement, it is found that in terms of spatial boundaries, the development of the old 
area is relatively compact, and the development of the new area has the problem of spreading. In 
terms of land use layout, both new and old areas have a high degree of functional mixing, the overall 
coordination is relatively high. In terms of streets, the overall coordination of the road network has 
gradually decreased, and the aspect ratios of the new and old streets have also shown inconsistency. 
Judging from the synergy of the courtyard space, the wisdom inheritance of the new area to the old 
area is relatively weak, and the synergy is relatively poor. 
In the future development process, in terms of the boundary, the growth of the space of Phoenix 
Town should be expanded in an orderly manner according to the logic of spatial evolution. Based 
on the analysis of spatial evolution, different levels of protection are delineated. In terms of land use, 
it is necessary to gradually guide the renewal and expansion of land use in combination with 
industrial development in the future, to avoid the functional changes caused by sudden changes in 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
the form of destruction of the ancient town's style, and at the same time to control the building height. 
In terms of streets, the aspect ratio of streets and lanes should be properly modified to continue the 
aspect ratio of traditional old streets. At the same time, through the appropriate adjustment of the 
road network to improve its coordination. In terms of the courtyard, it is classified and guided by 
comparison with the prototype. 
REFERENCES 
Wei Fengqun,Li Junshe,Xi Yueting. (2016). Research on the Inheritance of the Spatial Order of 
Ancient Towns Based on the Concept of "Culture Growth" —Taking Shaanxi Province as an Example. 
Urban Planning International, 31(3):105-110. 
Peng Jun.(2010). Research on Collaborative Planning and Design of Ancient and New Towns in 
Small Towns, M.A. Thesis. Wuhan:Wuhan University of Technology. 
Duan Jin, Shao Runqing, Lan Wenlong,Liu Jinhua and Jiang Ying.(2019).Space Gene.City Planning 
Review, 43(02):14-21. 
Chen Wenbin.(2018).Research on the Spatial Layout Adjustment of Fenghuang Ancient Town in 
Southern Shaanxi. M.A. Thesis. Xi'an: Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology. 
Huang Liwei, Yang Li, Wang Wanjiang.(2018). Planning Strategy of Organic Connection between 
New and Old Urban Areas from the Perspective of Overall Synergy—Taking Kaifeng Inter-city 
Planning as an Example. Planners, 34(12):96-102. 
L.A. Pezzetti.(2019).Layered Morphologies and Latent Structures:Reading, Decoding, Rewriting to 
Henhance Historic Rurban Lanscape.Shanghai:Tongji University Press. 
SUN Zhiqing.(2017).Analysis on the Regional Characteristics and Ecological Experience of 
Traditional Houses in Shangluo Area-Taking the Houses of Fenghuang Ancient Town in Laishui County 
as an Example.Urbanism and Architecture, (23):112-115. 
Luo Yan, Du Feng, Qiu Kaifu.(2013). Planning of urban and rural overall planning based on synergy 
theory. Planners,29(12):12-16. 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Haizhao Hao, Ph.D. candidate, College of Architecture, Xi'an University of Architecture and Technology, 
No.13, Yanta Road, Xi'an, Shaanxi Province,  P.R.China,710055. 664107708@qq.com 


Measuring spatial morphology synergy between old and new areas in Fenghuang town (Shaanxi)

Tang, Jiaxuan

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
MODERN MEGASTRUCTURES AND ITS IMPACT ON TRADITIONAL URBAN 
TEXTURE: A BEIJING EXAMPLE  
Jiaxuan Tang, Peking University, China 
ABSTRACT 
This paper uses a unique perspective: comparing the large-scale buildings (or so-called Modern 
Megastructure) in today’s city with the idea of Megastructure in the 1970s to evaluate their 
influence. Through the analysis of the formation process and street texture of its and the 
surrounding blocks, this paper points out the influence of these large-scale buildings on the current 
urban structure, and explores how these large-scale buildings affect the development direction of 
the future city. 
INTRODUCTION  
In the 1960s and 1970s, with the continuous prominence of urban problems and the continuous 
advancement of technology, there was a trend in the field of Architecture to solve urban problems 
with Megastructures, that is, to internalize some urban functions and advocate vertical connections 
between huge buildings to break the traditional urban structure and resolve the problem of high 
density and low living standards that have brought counter-urbanization. Due to the theoretical and 
radical nature of the Megastructure trend, it was hardly reflected in physical buildings and quickly 
died out after a period. It was written into textbooks as a possible answer to an urban problem. 
Fifty years later, more and more large-scale buildings have appeared in our cities. The huge 
volumes of these buildings are easily reminiscent of the concept of Megastructures, but how is the 
spirit of this new type of modern Megastructures different? Can they solve urban problems like 
traditional Megastructures, or just bring new problems? Can traditional institutional ideas provide 
useful references for these contemporary buildings? Based on the perspective of urban 
morphology, this paper examines the background and development process of two modern 
Megastructures in Beijing, trying to use this dynamic analysis to investigate the impact of such 
buildings on urban functions and structures, and make comparative analysis and evaluation with 
traditional megastructure theory. 
BACKGROUND AND METHODOLOGY 
The urban morphology scholars of the Conzenian tradition studied the historical process of the 
formation of the town plan through the method of historical analysis. By extracting the town plan 
combined with the building fabric and land utilization, and using detailed chronological research 
based on several cases (the earliest and most representative one is Alnwick), they tried to discover 
a universal theory and typical process about the formation process of urban town plan. 
Scholars of the Conzenian tradition believe that compared with the frequent changes in building 
fabric and land utilization, the town plan is the most conservative morphological complex: the block 
layout of a region (especially the street network) is likely to remain in place even after hundreds of 
years (Conzen, 1960).  
In another field, the architects of the 1960s and 1970s were obsessed with the study of 
Megastructures (Banham, 2020). At that time, many urban problems such as the decline of the city 
center and suburbanization plagued architects and planning scholars. A trend of technicalism 
prompted architects to design large structures that could give urban functions to a single building, 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
including the so-called plug-in city ang walking city, etc. These Megastructures often have a vast 
interior space that can be divided into parts, and always ignore the interaction with the street 
surface like traditional street buildings (because their scale may be much larger than the street 
itself). Le Corbusier’s Algiers plan was considered to be the first Megastructure urban design, 
although the concept of Megastructure was only proposed by Japanese Metabolist architect Maki 
Fumiko more than 30 years later. Although this trend disappeared shortly after being too radical, 
its spiritual core—the tridimensional, centralized urban function—has been retained in some form. 
Large buildings then compromise with the traditional urban structure. They are scattered or 
concentrated in some areas of the city, becoming technological monuments, and perhaps also 
hinting at the future direction of the city. 
Therefore, it is not difficult to see the challenges faced in using this ancient theory to explain 
contemporary large-scale buildings: when the original architects designed mega-buildings, they 
overthrew the traditional urban form with great confidence. But in fact, independent and large-scale 
buildings are bound to coexist with the original texture of the city. This is more like a process of a 
large building invading and destroying the original texture of the city. Before this process is fully 
completed, what we have to face is a mixed city—new and old, large-scale and small-scale, 
alienated and closely connected. We are bound to conduct an in-depth investigation of this change 
in order to analyze the impact of contemporary Megastructures on the city under this new 
construction background, compare and analyze with the traditional megastructure theory. 
Fortunately, Conzen’s urban morphology theory provides us with a good way to analyze this 
process: by studying the development process of the urban texture of the Megastructures and 
surrounding areas, we can analyze whether the emergence of Megastructures has brought positive 
influence to the city. This is the basis for our comparative analysis of traditional Megastructures. At 
the same time, this evolutionary perspective also helps us answer the following questions: Why do 
Megastructures appear here? Is there a typical development process of urban morphology? 
Beijing is undoubtedly a good case for this analysis-the special state-owned land attributes make 
large-scale construction projects carried out here have more opportunities to obtain land close to 
the city center (rather than actively distribute surround the city and form the so-called fringe belt), 
which creates a strong contrast between the two kinds of urban textures. Through the analysis of 
the project Galaxy SOHO and the National Grand Theater, we were able to answer some of the 
questions mentioned above. 
THE CHARACTERISTICS OF THE ERA OF BEIJING URBAN TEXTURE EVOLUTION  
The texture left over from a typical ancient Chinese city has obvious planning features. The urban 
planning ideas inherited from "Zhou Li" made the square grid the mainstream in the construction of 
ancient Chinese cities. The urban form of Beijing’s Old City was formed by the construction of the 
Yuan Dynasty and the expansion of the Ming and Qing dynasties on this basis. There are large 
areas of residential areas and spontaneous roads in the city. 
Regarding the formation mechanism of the urban road network in ancient China, some scholars 
pointed out that while the "Lifang System" divided the city into larger areas, most of the internal 
roads were naturally formed due to the construction of buildings. In Beijing, the traditional 
“Siheyuan” style residential courtyards fill almost the entire old city area, and the most inferior 
roads are called “Hutong”, which is also one of the symbols representing the cultural life of old 
Beijing. 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
The model of “Hutong” and “Siheyuan” is the most typical urban form of residential area in 
Beijing's old city. Due to lack of planning, buildings are arranged densely and roads lack 
systematic planning. 
After 1949, due to the establishment of the new communist regime, urban land was gradually 
nationalized, and huge private house replacement activities were carried out, which provided the 
property rights basis for the subsequent reconstruction activities in the old city area. In the early 
days of the founding of the People’s Republic of China, most of the construction activities focused 
on the demolition of city walls and the construction of large public buildings. The form of residential 
areas in the old city was not excessively interfered. However, with the increase in population and 
housing pressure, some units were approved to occupy some historic courtyards, and at the same 
time, they built their own houses in the original Hutong residential area. Due to the lack of unified 
approval and planning, these two actions have caused great damage to the original building 
texture: a large number of newly built houses are randomly interspersed in the empty areas of the 
old city, further worsening the crowded living environment. 
This environment did not change until the renovation of dilapidated houses at the end of the 20th 
century. Although the two large-scale renovations of dilapidated houses did improve the living 
environment of residents, they also demolished some traditional blocks with historical value. At this 
stage, a large number of commercial buildings began to appear in the old city, and this kind of 
commercial buildings had an even greater impact on the urban texture: from simply affecting the 
internal texture and function of the building block to affecting the shape of the city, including road 
levels, roads Net density, accessibility, etc., which further damage the texture of the old city. 
Fortunately, in the same period, through the delimitation of 25 historical protection blocks in the old 
city of Beijing, a number of historical blocks of representative value to be protected according to 
law were stipulated, which made part of the old city texture as a kind of building The legacy was 
preserved. 
After entering the 21st century, this kind of intervention to the original urban texture has become 
diversified: there are development models of CBD areas, high-rise buildings, and high-density, as 
well as large-scale buildings interspersed with the old texture. (For example, the National Grand 
Theater, Galaxy SOHO, etc.). The development of this play has a characteristic: the scale of new 
buildings is much larger than that of old buildings, which leads to sparse urban blocks-this is also 
one of the focuses of the case we will analyze later. 
CASE STUDY: A CHRONOLOGICAL ATLAS ANALYSIS OF MODERN MEGASTRUCTURES IN 
BEIJING 
We selected two buildings in Beijing as the destination of the analysis: one is Galaxy SOHO in 
Chaoyang District, and the other is the National Grand Theater in Xicheng District. The selection of 
the two case sites considered their common and different characteristics. Both are large-scale urban 
buildings, but Galaxy SOHO has richer urban functions, its internal structure is also richer, and its 
connection with the outside world is more direct. The National Grand Theater is relatively isolated 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
from the external environment (Figure 1 and 2). 
 
Figure 1.  The aerial photos of the Galaxy SOHO. 
 
Figure 2. The aerial photos of the National Grand Theater. 
Through the comparison of aerial photos, we can find that during the construction of Galaxy 
SOHO, the surrounding urban environment is also changing. Before and after the construction of 
the National Grand Theater, except for the Great Hall of the People on the east side, the rest of the 
urban texture Most of them are preserved (because it is close to the core of the old city, the 
protection is stricter). 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Through further morphological 
analysis of the development 
process of Galaxy SOHO and its 
surrounding blocks, we can see 
that long before the construction 
of Galaxy SOHO, urban 
renewal behavior has already 
occurred in its surrounding 
blocks. From the beginning, 
scattered commercial or 
residential buildings were built in 
the original texture, and some 
were scattered along the street. 
After the implementation of the 
dilapidated house renovation 
project in Beijing around 2000, 
the northern and western parts 
of the project site were 
demolished in large areas and 
new-style residential buildings 
were built, but the composition 
of residents remained 
unchanged. Plot A, where Galaxy SOHO will be built in the future, was used as a dormitory for 
construction workers in this large-scale housing renovation project, and was abandoned after the 
completion of the project, forming a wasteland (Figure 3). 
After analyzing the road network before 
and after the housing renovation project, 
we found that even though this project has 
greatly changed the form of residences 
and the organization of residents, that is, 
from the courtyard-style residence along 
the street to the introverted apartment 
building, the interior of the block The 
texture of the street is largely preserved 
(here, the inherited road refers to the road 
whose position is preserved and the 
architectural form along the street is 
changed, and the unchanged road refers 
to the road and the buildings along the 
street have not changed). This shows that 
even if a certain project can be pushed to 
the original urban architectural texture in 
a short time, the street network will still 
remain part of the street network 
tenaciously (even retain the original 
name), which may be related to the residents’ habits and suitable block scale. It is related to the 
stage of construction. In view of this, it is not common to overthrow the original street network. 
Figure 3. The change of the plan elements (land utilization and building 
fabric) since 1943. 
Figure 4. The change of the road system compared with 
2003. 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
However, in the plot of Galaxy SOHO, the original street network has completely disappeared: 
this is one of the most obvious characteristics that distinguish it from the renewal of surrounding 
residential areas. Large buildings eliminate the possibility of retaining the original street network, 
and therefore have a greater impact on the urban form (Figure 4).  
 
Figure 5. The contemporary road system around the two sites. 
Therefore, a complete investigation of the street network surrounding the project may be the key to 
studying the influence of modern Megastructures. By extracting and visualizing map data from 
online map providers, we can see that the street networks of Galaxy SOHO and the National 
Grand Theater show different characteristics: Although Galaxy SOHO has broken the original 
connection structure, it tries to integrate The internal creation of a pedestrian system with as close 
to the original scale as possible is an effort to integrate into the original urban fabric. The street 
network around the National Grand Theater is sparse and isolated, and the entire building is 
isolated from the original urban fabric (Figure 5). 
 
Figure 6. The inner structure of Galaxy SOHO (L) and the National Grand Theatre (R). 
This difference may come from the different architectural design concepts. At the beginning of the 
design, Galaxy SOHO was positioned as a neighborhood where young people live and work. This 
requires that it must have an internal scale that is easy to walk and communicate under its 
megastructure exterior, so it appears as several small buildings in form. Fusion. The National 
7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
Centre for the Performing Arts, as a public venue, considers its functionality and monumentality 
more, so it is designed as a structure that is isolated from the outside world by a dome. 
CONCLUSIONS 
Through a brief analysis of Galaxy SOHO and the National Grand Theater, we can get a glimpse 
of the primary characteristics of modern Megastructures. In this part, we will compare it with the 
original mega-ideas, and point out its problems and development directions. 
Undoubtedly, compared with the wild ideas of old Megastructures, contemporary Megastructures 
show more compromises to existing cities, such as smaller scale, more dispersed distribution, and 
efforts to integrate into the old urban texture. This goes against the idea of extensive 
interconnection and tridimensional development in the original Megastructure to produce a new 
urban form. Therefore, it is difficult for us to see that modern Megastructures can solve the 
problems of high density and low living conditions in urban centers like the mega-ideas. However, 
contemporary Megastructures do inherit the characteristics of old Megastructures in some respects, 
such as internalized urban functions, vertical structure to a certain extent, and, even if some 
projects try to conceal, rebellion against the original city streets. 
These inherited characteristics do not necessarily all have a good effect: we see that the 
appearance of Megastructures completely disappears the original urban fabric. This is not a 
gradual process, but a direct change. Therefore, if there is no good spatial organization inside the 
Megastructure, the original pedestrian-friendly block scale will disappear completely, and the 
expansion of the block scale will increase the difficulty of urban life. In other words, the original 
megastructure replaced the original urban streets with internalized interconnected blocks to 
promote the connectivity of the city and facilitate people’s lives. However, if modern 
Megastructures can only destroy the old streets, they cannot Form a new internal texture, and this 
change will have a negative impact on the ease of use of the city. 
Therefore, this comparison helps us reveal some of the problems existing in modern Megastructures 
and points out some possible solutions: increase internal and external connectivity and try our best 
without completely subverting the existing urban texture. Get into it. Perhaps with the development 
of the city, we will see a three-dimensional city with huge buildings intricately connected to each 
other. But before that day, these behemoths must try to hide themselves in the streets of the city. 
REFERENCES 
Banham, R. (2020) Megastructure: urban futures of the recent past, Monacelli Press. 
Conzen, M. R. G. (1960) Alnwick, Northumberland: a study in town-plan analysis. Transactions 
and Papers (Institute of British Geographers), iii-122. 
Kropf, K. (2009) Aspects of urban form. Urban morphology, 13, 105. 
Levy, A. (1999) Urban morphology and the problem of the modern urban fabric: some questions 
for research. Urban Morphology, 3, 79-85. 
Whitehand, J. W., Gu, K., Whitehand, S. M. & Zhang, J. (2011) Urban morphology and 
conservation in China. Cities, 28, 171-185. 
8 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Jiaxuan Tang, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, 5 Yiheyuan Road, Beijing, 
100871, China. tangjiaxuan@pku.edu.cn 


Modern megastructures and its impact on traditional urban texture: a Beijing example

Yang, Yang

Yaguchi, Tetsuya

ISUF 2020: CITIES IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY  
 
A “SYMBIOSIS” URBAN MORPHOLOGY CREATED BY NEW PUBLIC REALM IN  
21ST-CENTURY TOKYO  
Yang Yang, PhD Candidate, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, UK 
Tetsuya Yaguchi, Professor, Department of Architecture, Waseda University, Japan 
ABSTRACT 
The paper explored and explained how public realm development of Tokyo result in its 
“symbiosis” urban form in terms of “form”, “time”, “resolution”, and “non-formal conditions”. 
Through discussion, the research identified some unique features that challenge the previously 
generic understanding of morphological studies in other different contexts compared to Tokyo. It 
argued that (semi-)interior public space in contemporary Japanese architecture as new public 
realm plays a significant role in the representation (as a resultant phenomenon) and explanation 
(as contributing cause) of the “symbiosis” mechanism. The paper concluded that the “symbiosis” 
urban morphology in 21st-century Tokyo is the result of the reciprocal relations between 
architectural intervention by building typology, expanded urban public realm through 
(semi-)interior public space, and other non-formal conditions. 
Keywords: Symbiosis, Public Realm, Urban Morphology, Building Typology, Contemporary 
Japanese Architecture, Tokyo. 
INTRODUCTION  
Tokyo’s urban landscape is unique. It is a “collage city”, with both modern and traditional urban 
artefacts coexist. It is an “ephemeral city” constantly suffering from natural disasters and wars, 
updating itself through time. It is a metabolized city of a living organism, with buildings rebuild 
within a short period to achieve an alternative “eternity.” It is a “hybrid” city with creative 
architectural typologies juxtaposing various programs and styles (Kajima, Kuroda, and Tsukamoto, 
2001). The author here coins Tokyo’s unique urban landscape of its comprehensively processing 
and synthesizing the somehow “complexity and contradiction” (Venturi, 1966) features –old and 
new; modern and tradition, temporary and eternal, etc.– into an integrated formal result as 
“symbiosis” (Kurokawa,1997) urban morphology. 
Tokyo’s public realm also contains this ambiguity in its theoretical concept imported from the West 
and its physical form in typology. It argues an emerging type of alternative public space embedded 
within contemporary Japanese architecture is both the result of “ambiguous” urban conditions in 
21st-century Tokyo and a possible solution responding to that situation in forming a unique feature 
of “symbiosis” urban landscape mentioned above. 
The paper aims to addresses Tokyo’s “symbiosis” urban morphology through its public realm 
development.  Specifically, the main questions: how the new public space type results in Tokyo’s 
unique “symbiosis” urban form will be detailed in terms of principles of “form”, “time”, 
“resolution”, and “non-formal conditions” in urban morphological studies. A comprehensive 
explanation of Tokyo’s “symbiosis” mechanism in terms of public realm development and its 
differences compared to cities in different contexts is discussed. 
 
2 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
BACKGROUND  
Tokyo's urban landscape is widely accepted as "chaotic" and "disordered" (Ashihara, 1998; 
Shinohara, 2001). This phenomenon can be explained by its fluctuated urban development history. 
Today's Tokyo is built upon Edo, a precedent feudal city with the natural topography and water 
system. The city, afterwards influenced by modernism and post-modern, introduced Western culture 
into a capital and market city; it also experienced several rebuilds due to the constant wars and 
disasters in history. Naturally, socio-culturally and political-economically, the mixed ideologies 
between local Japan-ness (tradition) and imported West-ness (modern) result in complex and 
contradictory conditions.  
 
Although there are many urban studies on Tokyo, a few works of literature–for example, Maki 
(2008)– tried to systematically decode the mechanism behind the formation of its unique urban 
landscape. Moreover, the number of papers is exceptionally scarce in bring knowledge of urban 
studies on Tokyo into the field of urban morphology to have a discussion and comparison. Only 
two articles related to Japan have appeared so far in the Urban Morphology journal–one is about 
Japanese townscape(Satoh, 1997) and the other is about the general introduction of different 
perspectives of studying urban form (Satoh, Matsuura and Asano, 2015)– are not situated to 
discuss a specific contemporary Japanese city concerning the context and knowledge in the 
previous urban morphological studies.  
 
This paper fills the gaps mentioned above through a wide range of knowledge resources to 
comprehensively explain Tokyo's "symbiosis" mechanism in terms of its public realm development, 
under the fundamental principles: "form", "time", "resolution", and "non-formal conditions" to build 
a connection with previous understanding and knowledge in urban morphological studies. 
METHODOLOGY 
The paper used public realm development in multiple realized projects in Tokyo as exemplary 
cases to have a discussion and explanation of current “symbiosis” urban morphology in Tokyo.  
Besides the on-site observations of the exemplary projects, interviews with Japanese architects, 
developers, and local users from the general public using public space in the fieldwork are carried 
out. Together with urban theories and studies on Tokyo borrowed in the literature as supporting 
materials, the paper comprehensively explained the formation of Tokyo’s “symbiosis” urban 
morphology in terms of “form”, “time”, “resolution” and “non-formal conditions” principles. 
FINDINGS  
According to Moudon (1997, p.7), there are three fundamental principles in every morphological 
research that needs to be aware and addressed: “form,” “resolution” and “time”; or translated in 
other words, “type or configuration,” level of scale” and “process” (Kropf, 2011); or adapted and 
expanded its original scope, “pattern recognition,” “theories of change,” “linkage to non-formal 
conditions”(Scheer, 2016).  
(1) “Form” and “Time” 
Tokyo’s “symbiosis” urban morphology can be seen from the coexistence and reciprocal 
supplement between traditional and contemporary public space typologies. Tokyo loses the 
morphological consistency in the time dimension. The inconsistency makes any prediction of the 
city’s future transformation based on Muratori’s (1959,1963) “operational histories” more difficult. 
Tokyo’s city development in history is much directed by periodical natural disasters, war damages, 
rapid economic crises, and global events (Olympic games, for instance). The history of Tokyo is a 
3 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
history of changing. It is a temporary rather than eternal city compared to most Western cities. In 
parallel with the changing society, the typology of public space also keep updated, responding to 
the new demands. It revolves from traditional urban open areas (alleyways, riverside, shrines)as 
various sakariba (busting places) in Edo period to the national symbol of parks, gardens, and 
squares introduced from Western counties in Meiji period, and to many POPSs (Private Owned 
Public Space) in urban complexes provided by private companies (Jinnai, 2015).  
Interestingly, latter new (semi-)public space types have not replaced the former types completely. 
However, different types coexist and supplement each other while keep updating themselves to 
new changes (figure 1). For example, the concept of the plaza in Western cities, mixed with the 
Japanese idea of hiroba (open space), is adapted into new typologies:  the station-front plaza in 
Shinjuku, the floating plaza at Tokyu Plaza, the sunken plaza at Hillside Terrace, the building-front 
plaza at Midtown Hibiya, etc. The concept of park similarly adjusted to the local context, for 
example, Ginza Sony park, Shibuya Miyashita Park, urban regeneration park at Roppongi Hills, or 
residential neighbourhood park produced under Land Adjustment Law. The traditional alleys and 
streets into the interior shotengai (business street) with canopy within buildings and underground 
spaces. The waterfront as a traditional public space type is also under redevelopment at the bay 
area on the reclaimed land and city canals together with urban regeneration projects. Interviews 
with local users indicate local people enjoy both the traditional and contemporary public space, 
and they think the old and new types are both indispensable. 
 
(2) “Form” and “Resolution”  
Tokyo’s “symbiosis” urban morphology can be seen from its ambiguous landscape as an 
integrated whole, instead of clear assemblages of the hierarchical parts through the synthesis of 
Figure 1. Various of old and new typologies in plazas(a), parks(b), streets(c) and waterfront(d) coexist in a “symbiosis” 
relation. Source: all photos from the author. 
4 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
interior and exterior, above and underground, public and private in its inclusive organization 
structure. Tokyo’s urban morphology is hidden in deepness arranged in a three-dimensional way. 
The conventional approach of reading urban form from the top-view projection in the plan cannot 
precisely capture the scope of urban space with multiple layers in depth vertically. Horizontally, 
urban space becomes more permeable inside the building, creating more “grey” space (reflecting 
various degrees of “publicness”) in terms of Nolli’s classic map of Rome. With regards to that, both 
public and private dichotomy and hierarchical classification of compositional elements in urban 
morphological studies dissolved by contemporary “open city” (Sennett, 2018) through the 
expanded public realm and urban activities within.  
In Karl Kropf’s (2011, 2014) generic diagram (figure. 2), it more or less indicates a clear division 
of “building and surrounding environment,” “interior and exterior,” as well as “public and private” 
relations. The integrated relation that is caused by a more porous character of contemporary 
architecture interacted with the city (Rossi, 1982), instead of put “building” individually as 
compositional elements, enables permeable urban space to connected different hierarchical urban 
elements in Tokyo’s city context.  The boundaries are dissolved in an ambiguous situation due to 
the spatial integration of architecture, landscape, and infrastructure, hybrid of programs, and 
juxtaposition of the public and private spheres and programs. A typical example is Tokyo’s TOD 
system (figure. 3). The urban space has been extended broadly into the underground as well as 
above ground with sky bridges and elevated platforms over the traditional street.  The 
(semi-)interior public space can generate interior urbanism, which breaks the constrain of “plot” in 
terms of use by behaviour rather than legal ownership draw by property line (Kropf, 2018, 2019). 
Interviews with contemporary Japanese architects indirectly demonstrate that the design of their 
architectural form is the result of the considerations of spaces catering to proposed activities for 
users. In other words, human behaviour and related activities are decisive for shaping urban form. 
 
Figure 2. Urban morphological composition in the context of Tokyo adapted by the author (in red) based on and 
compared with Karl Kropf’s (2011) generic diagram of compositional elements and spaces in urban morphology. 
5 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
(3) “Form” and “Non-formal Conditions” 
Tokyo’s “symbiosis” urban morphology can be seen from the production of public realm through 
various spatial agencies on multiple levels in a “symbiosis” relationship toward a resultant 
“symbiosis” urban form. It also can be seen in a hybrid purpose of natural protection, social 
cohesion, community formation, and disaster prevention embedded in the design of public space. 
Specifically, this process can only be realized under Public-Private-Partnership (PPP), which is 
applied in many urban regeneration projects incorporating urban public realm under the policy of 
“urban renaissance” (Tsukamoto and Fujimura and Shiner, 2008). Socially, close collaboration 
between government and private sectors (private companies, NGOs, committees, and individuals), 
makes top-down urban planning envisions can be realized and adjusted by a bottom-up process 
of machizukuri –town-making method (Satoh, Matsuura and Asano, 2015). The design process 
includes several discussions through workshops and seminars. Such cooperation is continued in the 
later management and events organization for better use of public space. Economically, private 
capital is used for the public good as sustainable development. PPP utilized in planning releases 
government from the economic burdens. Private sectors also benefit from the deregulation of laws 
by trading POPS to gain more profitable FAR. Initiatives catering for “people” (for attractive, 
comfortable and disaster-resistant living) and “environment” (for green and energy-saving) through 
public space development in “quality” rather than “quantity” are becoming a consensus for 
sustainable objectives by both public and private sectors (Bureau of Urban Development, 2009; 
2020) 
The broad scope of the PPP system applied in public realm generation further diminishes the 
discontinuous landscape reflected by the constrained individual plot through capitalism and 
functionalism in modernism. The “persistency” (Scheer, 2010, p.47) of urban tissue –street and 
plot–has been challenged in many urban renewal projects. In the Toranomon Hills project, the 
deregulation of law allows private buildings to be built over roads and other public spaces owned 
Figure 3. An integrated urban fabric with multiple layers in the TOD (Transit-Oriented-Development) system at Shibuya 
station. Source: Shinkenchiku magazine 2019(12). 
6 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
by the government. Similarly, in the case of Toshima City Office, properties rearrangement was 
applied in the area with mixed public and private plots. It gives rise to the new building typology 
that hybridizes intended office building and residential tower with the creation of additional public 
square and terrace for the general public under Urban Redevelopment Law and Urban 
Renaissance Special Measurement Law (see figure 4).  
 
CONCLUSIONS 
The development of public realm production reflects a unique urban landscape in the 21st-century 
city of Tokyo compared to other cities in terms of three principles of “form,” “time,” resolution,” as 
well as “non-formal conditions.” The new public space type becomes the representation (as a 
resultant phenomenon) and explanation (as contributing cause) of the “symbiosis” mechanism: (1) 
it coexists, diversifies and supplements public space typologies born in different times; (2) it 
integrates spaces and elements on different hierarchies, dissolving the boundaries into a 
synthesized system (3) it balances various non-formal stimuli (density, economic profit, public good, 
etc.). All three aspects are interweaved together and have reciprocal influences on each other. It is 
noteworthy that architectural design can positively –rather than often to be changed negatively– 
intervenes in the formation and transformation of urban morphology (Yang and Kossak, 2019) as 
hardware at a controllable and flexible middle-scale.  
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7 ISUF 2020 Cities in the Twenty-first Century 
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CORRESPONDING AUTHOR 
Yang Yang, PhD Candidate, School of Architecture, University of Sheffield, 9th Floor, Arts Tower, Western 
Bank, Sheffield, S10 2TN, UK. y.yang.associates@gmail.com 


A "symbiosis" urban morphology created by new public realm in 21st-century Tokyo

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