Project Statement

Aiming at the spatial regeneration and community building synergy development, the Dàshílànr Micro-Regeneration Handbook takes the Dàshílànr area in Beijing as example, the micro-regeneration as the guiding concept, to explore the Beijing old town Hutong renewal methods.

The project is in cooperation with THUPDI, Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design, Dàshílànr Platform. We have inspected the site and talked with local residents, government (neighborhood committees) and design institutes. Summarizing our previous research content and practical experience, we compile this handbook, and have shared our results with the public through flash mob activities, new media, videos, forums, etc., and after which, correct the handbook content based on the feedback.

We are looking forward to building a platform for joint development and a communication foundation between residents, tourists, government and professionals. The project is expected to be communicative and inspiring, so that more people would learn about the abundant and excellent possibilities of urban micro-regeneration projects.

Project Narrative

1.Purpose:

The spatial texture, architectural features and traditional life of Beijing Hutong are of great importance in Beijing's history and culture. Beijing Hutong has been through a period of arbitrarily building in history, which led to many problems of contradiction between spaces and needs. Under the government's "one size fits all" reconstruction, the Hutong gradually became unified but is losing its historical features and atmosphere of daily life. In addition, although the Hutong has a very high land value because of its location, history and culture, the average living standard of the residents is not particularly high.

With the advancement of the old town regeneration, the spaces have been reconstructed, but the residents' daily lives and urbanization are in a state of disconnection. Therefore, this handbook combines space renewal with community building to put forward planning concepts and strategies of old town micro-regeneration. As a landscape student, we hope to learn about the micro-regeneration and public participation of the old town through this project, and share our achievements with peers and residents through various publicity and interaction methods such as Hutong flash mob activities and public platform. We regard this handbook as a launching pad for multi-party groups to start public participation and community building throughout the cycle of urban regeneration projects, encouraging audience to participate in the design of strategies and motivating residents to construct their own landscapes and community.

2.Audience:

The handbook will be available to a wide audience, including residents, tourists, government and professionals. For those who intend to improve the community, it inspires the way to improve life quality spontaneously and cultivates the basis for dialogue with professionals and the government. What' s more, it would be more convenient for tourists to understand the Hutong space and its daily life culture. For governments and professionals, there are implementable strategies and approaches of public participation.

3.messages:

The content of the handbook is written in a participatory manner.

The general idea: The core problem of the Dàshílànr area is the imbalance between people and the development of environment, between demand and space, between house prices and infrastructures. The planning system takes "Promotion of people" as central idea, and integrates space-society mutual production. Through the cooperation of the five planning systems, the urbanization process of people would make progress while the space is being regenerated, and the social identity as well sense of belonging of residents would be enhanced. This handbook is divided into six sections: Region Information, Case Study, Design Ideas, Micro-regeneration Strategies, Vision Presentation, and Public Participation.

Region Information: This chapter introduces Dàshílànr as an important part of Beijing South Central Axis, which has a history of more than 500 years. As a historical business district of Beijing, it has rich traditional cultural heritage. Many spontaneous reconstructions and activities took place here. Therefore, we chose this block with a spirit of "grassroots" as an object to tentatively practice the implementation of public participation.

Case Study: This chapter presents the case study of the transformation of architectures, courtyards and streets in the current Hutong, from which we learn that there are flaws in the user's feedback. After that, we Integrate the experience of the cases and our planning idea to propose strategies that are both operative and creative.

Design Ideas: Through field research, distribution of questionnaires, neighborhood committee discussions and residents' interviews, we found that Dàshílànr is faced with many problems, such as: multiple users, conflicts in activity requirements, narrow spaces, loss of history and culture, chaotic parking spaces, lack of green landscape, obstructed drainage. Based on status quo, we propose five micro-regeneration strategies: activity implantation, traffic improvement, rainwater management, green promotion, event and industry plan. The five strategies construct five flexible micro-regeneration systems, which would stimulate the vitality of the Hutong. At every stage, the benefits under each system would be exerted, and the overall sustainable improvement effect would finally be formed.

[Micro-regeneration strategies]

01 Activity implantation

On the macroscopic level, the planning system of activity circle covers the whole area, enriching the activities in Hutong, while on the microscopic level, functional compound of space is designed to increase convenience facilities.

02 Traffic improvement

The planning system of parking in the Dàshílànr area involves two parts: motor vehicle parking and non-motor vehicle parking.

03 Rainwater management

The Dàshílànr is located at the historical area and it is impossible to lay rainwater pipes in a large area. Rainwater management planning system includes three aspects: infiltration, collection and rainwater landscape.

04 Green promotion

The space of the Dàshílànr area is limited, so it needs tree planting wherever is available. The three objects are top surface space, ground space and metope space. Different modes of Hutong greening methods and flexible planting devices are well designed, combined with interaction of residents.

05 Event and industry plan

There are many problems that cannot be solved in the Dàshílànr's regeneration, so we put forward two soft strategies: event plan and industry update. The two strategies rely on each other to jointly promote the exploration of humanistic connotation and further improvement of overall landscape feature.

Vision presentation: On the basis of establishing a planning system, we choose a living Hutong, Yanshou street, and a residential Hutong, Shejia Hutong to illustrate the connection between our planning system and detailed design.

Public participation: Share our achievements with the public through flash mob activities, new media, videos, forums, etc.. Provide the public with different ways and varying levels of participation and present our serious design illustrations in an interesting and understandable way. And revise our handbook based on feedback to stimulate dialogue among residents, tourists, government and professionals.

4.distribution method and impact

• Flash mob activities in Hutong: The activity has been held in the Shijia Hutong Museum and reported by 10 media such as Beijing Evening News and Landscape Architecture Magazine. The following activities are planned to be held at the Dàshílànr of Qianmen Street, Drum Tower Square of Andingmen area and the Beijing World Garden Expo in 2019.
• Dàshílànr Micro-Regeneration Handbook: In the next step, this handbook would be used as a guide book for the Old Town Micro-Regeneration Course in the Liang Xi Class of the College of Landscape Architecture of Beijing Forestry University, in order to integrate these knowledge into the curriculum system for further exploration.
• New Media:Our account Hutong Flash Lab has been registered on the Wechat Public Platform, and the articles have been read more than 3,000 times.
• Forum:We participated in the science lecture Green Life Of Hutong: Green Micro-Regeneration In The Beijing Historical District jointly organized by the Dàshílànr Platform and the College of Landscape Architecture of Beijing Forestry University, and communicated with designers and residents.
• Hutong Flash Mob Activity and the documentary of the Hutong Flash Lab would participate in Beijing Design Week 2019.
• Our thematic brochureshave been distributed about 400 copies.