In-Between Waters /Intercepting Wetness: Inventing Rain in the Mining Landscape of Shanxi Province,China

Under the background of imposing engineered structures, including reservoirs and inter-basin water transfer infrastructures, being applied to solve drought caused by coal mining in Shanxi Province of China and floods caused by mineral mining in Western Ghats of India, the author reviews the intrinsic reason of water problems and recommends a water management solution that is design on “rain before floods” and “fields of wetness before flows of water.” Most magnificent engineered infrastructures are designed upon an idea of separating water from its milieu, thus becoming contained flows in pipes, channels, and reservoirs to solve water problems. To compensate for the shortage of existing water infrastructures, the author suggests gathering a regional-level landscape capacity for building “wetness” of resilience when facing problems of “water” in extremities. This is a radical shift compared with a problem-solving approach, as engineering does, to one that is grounded in landscape and uncovers opportunities. The landscape research and design project introduced in this article aims to provide an alternative future for Shanxi Province, China, which seems arid and is challenged by monodevelopment mode. The research and design within the project are across four nested scales. A landscape infrastructure of intercepting wetness is taken as an underlying thread which initiates intertwined ecological, programmatic, temporal and material trajectories. On the other hand, the project demonstrates research, representation, design, and planning can actually inform one another, and the design remains open and adaptive to its changing environments.     

HIGH-QUALITY URBAN ENVIRONMENT OUT OF SLOW DESIGN: REVIEW AND PROSPECT OF URBAN DESIGN PRACTICES IN CHINA

Driven by unprecedented urbanization and everchanging applied technologies, urban planners and designers are exploring how to create comfortable living experience in fast-paced cities, thus rises the concept of “slowing city.” By reviewing years of design practices of Sasaki Associates, this article is focused on the core idea of “slowing city,” i.e., “making good use of local resources,” and its application into a number of urban regeneration practice. Further, by taking “user demands” as a critical reference, the article discusses how to coordinate the interests of a wide range of user groups and then facilitate cooperation among the government, citizens, and designers to ensure the long-term benefits of construction projects. Finally, critical thoughts are given to how the emerging technologies could contribute to urban construction and life quality, and the new opportunity that they may bring to the planning and design industry.     

Development trend of urban design in “digital age”: Pan-dimensionality and individual-ubiquity

The wave of “digital age” featuring digital information is coming. Digital technology is profoundly changing the societal development direction and evolution paths. It also has significant bearing on production modes, social interactions and lifestyles. With regard to urban design, a system of knowledge about the creation and adaptation of material space forms that integrate humanities, art, technology and materials, digital technology has provided it with a brand-new and revolutionary scientific impetus for its evolution. The result of this evolution is “digital urban design paradigm based on human-computer interaction”, i.e., the urban development is moving toward “pan-dimensionality” and “individual ubiquity”. The future of urban design will construct a new approach to urban research and engineering, which is more complex, capable of accommodating and compatible with multiple goals of “instrumental rationality” and “value rationality”. Such a new approach shall be led by the probabilistic theory of “gray scale thinking”, reflecting quaternary synergetic view of “scientific rationality, ecological rationality, cultural rationality and technical rationality” to realize the cognitive progress of “engineering for the benefit of mankind”.     

区域设计 在中国国土空间规划中的定位:长江三角洲巨型城市区的项目探索

By restructuring its planning system and integrating competences of land resource and water management, environmental conservation, agriculture, as well as spatial planning, under a same Ministry of Natural Resources in 2018, China ambitioned to definitively turn the page on inconsistent and sectoral planning practices. However, existing planning instruments are still linked to administrative boundaries and remain statutory and regulatory in nature, which makes them inadequate to address complex and dynamic megacity regions that span across different administrative entities. The Yangtze River Delta megacity region is the subject of an ambitious integration plan which focuses on economic coordination and urban services, however, there is still no coherent vision on its spatial development at the territorial scale. This article presents the “Jiangnan Park,” a university-led and design-driven research project focusing on the vast triangular plain between cities of Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Suzhou. Using the encompassing metaphor of regional “park” and applying the emerging method of regional design, this project combines mapping, visualization, design strategies, and workshop techniques to elaborate a development vision for this historically and ecologically sensitive area. As a pioneering case of regional design in China, this project exemplifies how the use of cross-scale and cross-sectoral collaborative methods can inform the development of integrative strategies for complex megacity regions.     

疗愈性街景元素识别与评价研究

The street is a type of important urban public space with multiple social values, one of which is the restorative potential. Based on the “beingaway,” “extent,” “fascination,” and “compatibility” constructs of restorative environments proposed by the Attention Recovery Theory, this study elaborated the significance of restorativeness provided by street environments to people living in high-density cities. It used the traditional restorativeness scale with mobile eye trackers to explore the restorative experience provided by an urban street, and identified the specific streetscape elements related to restorativeness and the degree of their influences. The results show that “greenery,” “people,” and “cars” perform significant influences, and different streetscape elements have different degrees of influences on the 4 constructs of the restorative environment. For example, for the“being-away,” “extent,” and “fascination” constructs, the influence of “greenery” is the most important, while “people” plays the core role in “compatibility.” The findings can help professionals develop targeted design strategies to improve diverse street environments for a better restorativeness.     

Arrival City — Application of the Game Theories in Renewal of Low-Density Urban Villages

Offering an alternative planning and design strategy of renewals of low-density urban villages, this research estimates potentials of increasing a city’s accommodation capacity of low-skilled labor force through economic approaches like the Game Theories. A design idea of creating an “arrival city” is proposed in the prototypical study on the renewal of the Ganjiazhai Community, a typical urban village in Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province. Developing spatial patterns through a series of evidence-based deductions and estimations, this research forms a node-axis framework of urban planning and design that allows for an adaptive combination of spatial modules and encourages spatial sharing, which might shine a reference for future planning and design of urban villages in Chinese cities.     

BRIDGING THE GAPS BETWEEN LANDSCAPE DESIGN PRACTICE AND SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH: A GRAPHICAL INTERPRETATION

Practitioners in the fields of landscape planning and design seem less taking advantage of, or even paying no attention to, existing findings of scientific research in other disciplines; and, they often conduct so-called “transdisciplinary” study on their own, but most of the outcomes are uncompetitive with those proven research findings in relevant fields. The author believed that it is essentially resulted from several dislocations between landscape practice and modern scientific research, that are, the gaps between holism and deconstruction, elements and functions, as well as graphics and texts. To bridge such gaps, this article puts forward two solutions: one is problem-finding and-addressing, and the other is synthesizing and visualization of research results, particularly through graphical interpretation.     

Design in THE Age of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is playing an everincreasing role in our lives, but what impacts might it have on the design professions? Will it introduce a new style? Or will it just help to improve the design process? Or will it have a completely different impact? This article attempts to offer an overview of the potential of Artificial Intelligence, defining the different forms of Artificial Intelligence, and illustrating its argument with the work of three designers. It argues that Artificial Intelligence will not generate a new style. However, it will have a radical input on the process of designing. It is also likely to force us to call into question many accepted beliefs within the design community. Certain traditional terms, such as the concept of a “design” and the very notion of “designing,” are likely to be replaced by a new lexicon that includes terms such as “searching” and “outcomes.” But, more importantly, the whole myth of the “artistic genius” is likely to be also called into question. What Artificial Intelligence tells us, as the paper concludes, is not how “artificial” Artificial Intelligence is, but rather how misguided our own understanding of human intelligence has been.     

RESILIENT URBAN DESIGN METHODS AND PRINCIPLES BASED ON THE COMPLEX ADAPTIVE SYSTEM THEORY

Uncertainty exists in the current urban development of contemporary cities and is getting diversified and complicated. Identifying and adapting to such uncertainty is partly defining the future development of urban planning and design. The concept of “resilient city” is developed from the current scientific demands in urban planning and design. This article suggests that Complex Adaptive System as a new system theory would help resilient city planning and construction. According to the Complex Adaptive System theory, a resilient city should possess the adaptability of its components, diversity, autonomy, appropriate redundancy, slow-variable management, and identification, in order to improve the ecological, social, and economic resilience and vitality of the city.     

合作生产理念下的社区实践研究——伦敦和长沙案例分析

Co-production, the process where the citizens and the government co-produce the public services, is an essential innovative model on national-social resources integration in the field of Public Administration, responding to the global fiscal austerity. Since the beginning of the 21st century, co-production has become the research hotspot abroad in such fields as urban governance, community governance, and urban planning. There is an absence of studies on the application of co-production in the community planning practices in China. Thus, in-depth exploration on the co-production valuing the whole-process participation is expected. After reviewing the domestic and foreign literature, the author first introduces the connotation of co-production, reviews its key theory implications, and then discusses the roles and forms of co-production in the community planning and community governance practices based on the case study of the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham and the Fengquan Gujing Community in Changsha City. The research comes up with three suggestions to the current problems in China’s community planning practices: 1) fostering the self-organizations by viewing “the producers as consumers”; 2) empowering communities with “content innovations”; and 3) encouraging value integration with inclusiveness of public values and private values.     

On YU Kongjian: A Constructive Postmodernism Approach Towards Ecological Civilization

On May 29, the 2021 John Cobb Common Good Award presented online was awarded to Yu Kongjian, professor of College of Architecture and Landscape of Peking University. This award is one of the highest honors in the field of Ecological Philosophy offered throughout the world. In the award ceremony, Dr. Jay McDaniel gave a speech to summarize Yu’s ideas and practices; and other scholars, including John Boswell Cobb Jr. also commented on Yu’s works. This article is a record and supplement of the speech and these comments. The speakers showed that Yu’s works reflect an approach they call “constructive postmodernism,” which combines poetic modern ways of living with wisdom from the past, pointing toward a greener and more habitable future. In light of the current ecological crisis, the speakers proposed that Yu’s Landscape Architecture is indeed “an art of survival.” In the spirit of constructive postmodernism, Yu combines traditional knowledge with a forward-looking attitude, helping to design a more promising future for humanity and the Earth. This essay explores ways that the idea of ecological civilization can “come down to earth” through shifts in attitude towards planning, designing, and aesthetic appreciation, showing how Yu’s thoughts and explorations will help China establish its leading role in the world’s transformation toward global ecological civilization.     

Architecture of ecumenical spaces in public buildings in the 21st century: Links among the architecture of multi-faith spaces,their names,and the functions they serve in Polish airports

This study explores the architecture and arrangement of prayer spaces in public buildings. It examines whether Polish airports have prayers spaces and whether a correlation exists between the name (e.g., “multi-faith space,” “place of prayer,” and “place of focus”) and design. The study is supported by analyses of ecumenical spaces, which have recently been brought into service andwhere a visible symbiosis exists between their names and functions. This study includes in situ investigations and is conducted based on awide range of literature, statistical data, comparativemethods, and logical reasoning. This study may provide an important indication for countries that are only beginning to face a design problem concerning architecture of multi-faith spaces.     

SLOWING DOWN FAST CITIES WITH DESIGNED EXPERIENCES

To challenge the stupefying homogeneities produced by dense and fast urban environments, designers should offer a range of experiences to create a “slowing city,” which first relies on the understanding of the character and range of “slow experiences,” then requires an empiricallydriven approach to attain it. Phenomenologically, slow experiences can be social or solitary; both are discussed. The former comes from “event” experiences that facilitate meaningful interactions among people, while the latter promotes a shift into “being mode” which can help replenish human’s attention. Using findings in psychology and neurocognition, this article suggests that architects, landscape designers, and urbanists adopt a scientifically-grounded phenomenological approach to designing healthy urban environments where people can flourish. More attention is required to investigate people’s experience of surfaces and textures, and of compositions with varying levels of patterned complexity, as well as the changeability of design features and approaches to combat habituation.     

Architect Robert Fan Wenzhao and the design of Chung Chi campus A case study of the mainland migrant architects working in Hong Kong, China in the 1950s

In about 1949, there was a large-scale migration of architects from the mainland to Hong Kong, China. Among them were those important figures in the modern Chinese architectural history such as Robert Fan, Su Gin-Djih, and Chu Pin. Their arrival at this colony had changed its architectural practice substantially from professional organization to actually built environment. Their unique contributions to Hong Kong’s modern architecture have been a new research interest in recent years. This paper tells a story about Robert Fan and his design of the Chung Chi College campus in the 1950s with an intention to reveal the multiaspects of the so called “migrant architects” through a single architectural event. The author tries to capture the intertwining relationship between the migrant architects and educators through the reconstruction of the recruitment process for a campus architect by Chung Chi College and to identify Mr. Robert Fan’s concept of campus planning with reference to his early design experience in the mainland of China.     

The Localization of “Imported” Urban Form in Northeast China: The Case Study on Circular–Radial Space in Dalian City

After the “imported” urban forms, which originated from foreign cultures, were transplanted into Chinese cities, they generate brand-new urbanscape but suffer from a lack of cultural roots and a disconnection with the mainstream of contemporary urban planning. Thus, their current value and potential in urban renewal are questioned. The study takes the circular–radial space from the Baroque cities as an example to clarify the motivation of its import from the west to northeast China. It further clarifies their adaptive changes in form and function in the local urban context, through a case study on Dalian City. The study finds that different geometric patterns of existing circular–radial space were influenced by European, American, and Japanese urban planning theories to varying degrees, but with equal emphasis on symbolism and functionality. Their implementation in Dalian has a continuity in time and space. But due to the changes in topography, traffic, and planning concepts, their forms and functions tend to be independent, their connection weakens, and their importance recedes after the street network. The circular–radial space in Dalian led to distinctive urbanscape. But during their inheritance and transformation, the rationality of new forms and functions, as well as the necessity of continuing the initial ones need to be dialectically considered, so as to avoid dogmatic revival and antique reproduction. Finally, the study reconsiders the concept of “localization” of “imported” urban form, and constructs a general research pattern to provide a new perspective for understanding the transformation of similar types of urban forms.     

实践研究:创新知识和方法的范式

In this article, the author concluded the patterns and challenges of practice research by Peking University-Turenscape into the answers to three questions: 1) By conducting practice research, people can gain the knowledge and methodologies to address authentic practice issues with constant attempts; 2) College faculties and students, researchers, and planners / designers are the agencies of practice research, but they are in dilemma because of the over pursuit for paper publication and citation in academic performance assessment, and the insufficient time and budget for research leading a fact that generic planning schemes and stereotypes are popularly employed; And 3) the healthy development and long-term promotion of practice research relies on the growth of the market-oriented industry. As one type of the practice research, “prototype study” offers a paradigm for the innovation of knowledge and methodology. Oriented to future challenges and uncertainties, it would help extend the horizon of Landscape Architecture, providing designers and scholars with prospective design insights and flexible working methods.     

Engaging Luni: A Critical Zone of Wetness rather than a River

When the ground is understood as a geographic surface, Luni is articulated to be a seasonal river that flows through the Thar Desert in India. In this paradigm, the desert is perceived as empty or as a place of scarcity to which water must be brought in pipes and canals. However, when situated within a “critical zone of wetness” that extends from clouds to aquifers, Luni is a culturally vibrant open terrain where various traditional practices of habitation—salt production, pottery, music, block printing, and dyeing—are acutely tuned to the monsoon. The design studio organized and instructed by Professor Anuradha Mathur in 2018 at the Stuart Weitzman School of Design, University of Pennsylvania engages the latter through analog prints, imprints, and montages to construct another ground. This approach pursues Luni as ubiquitous wetness, rather than understanding the Luni-as-a-river differently. The design project “Resonating Instruments” is an outcome of this studio. Instead of working with maps that construct the ground as a geographic surface, the project uses drawing, photography, printmaking, and montage as techniques of negotiation to construct the ground as a “critical zone of wetness.” These techniques were used to engage the Luni and to construct the instruments in a “critical zone of wetness,” where negotiation, flexibility, fluidity, and gradients are favored over rigidity, separation, and strict delineations and definitions.     

Use of gestalt in wayfinding design and analysis of wayfinding process

The authors brought forward the definition of “Gestalt space” and indicated this kind of space can be easily cognized. Three experiments showed that “classification” and “grouping” are the human strategies to solve wayfinding problems. “Similarity” and “Legibility” of the space are advantageous to help people to complete wayfinding tasks. The designer should provide the essential “Legibility” in Gestalt space, by using some techniques such as “break” and “accession” to settle the wayfinding problem.     

深远未来: 2200,爱尔兰与北爱尔兰边境的设计幻想

The long-term effects of climate change will supersede the implications of political demarcations and divisions. Within this context, “Fantastical Borderlands” proposes a rewilded territory, a landscape of slowness, for the Irish Northwest that encapsulates the northern borderlands between Ireland and Northern Ireland. This landscape emerges as a result of the significant reduction of grazing and the anticipated flooding of low-lying lands between Lough Foyle and Lough Swilly. The narrative process considers how flood risk might be managed in conjunction with the initiation of an ambitious rewilding scheme, while remaining sensitive to landscapes of deep cultural connection. By the “reverse time capsule” with performance and exhibition, “Fantastical Borderlands” is narrated from 2200 via a series of vignettes that reflect actions taken during the two centuries prior; the years surrounding Brexit serve as a catalyst for landscape change for the border landscape. The project is liberated from its constraints to near-term planning propositions, instead enabling a focus on landscape impacts that are revealed only at extended timeframes. Ultimately, the project asks: What is the role of storytelling and mythmaking in illuminating current realities and distant futures?     

Marble epistyles under shear: an experimental study of the role of “Relieving Space”

The mechanical response of mutually interconnected epistyles is studied experimentally. The specimens are made of two marble blocks connected to each other with an “I”-shaped titanium connector placed in grooves sculptured on the blocks and covered with cementitious material. The specific way of connecting epistyles simulates the one used by scientists restoring the ancient “connections” of the epistyles of the Parthenon Temple. This “connection”, although designed to sustain mainly tensile loading, undertakes, also, shear load, in case of excitations imposing to the epistyles displacements normal to the connector’s axis. Attention is focused to enlighten the role of a novel design technique aiming to relieve the stress field around the connector. According to this technique, part of the connector’s web is left uncovered, forming the so-called “Relieving Space”, assisting the unconstrained deformation of the connector. Both traditional and innovative sensing techniques were employed in an effort to obtain data from the interior of the three-material-complex (marble-cementitious material-titanium). Analysis of the data indicated that the “Relieving Space” reduces the overall stiffness of the system, protecting marble in case of over-loading. Moreover, it was concluded that the innovative techniques employed provide pre-failure indicators well in advance of the catastrophic failure of the specimens.