Change vs. Transformation:
Urban Design and City Morphosis

Concept:

The stunning speed of the recent Chinese urban development presents both opportunities and challenges for both public and private sectors, as well as for architects and planners. After two decades of rapid growth and relentless physical change, Chinese cities are moving towards a more integrated and mature urban transformation. This concerns not only the “hard” index of physical construction but also the “soft” quality of living spaces, such as environmental friendliness, cultural and historical integrity as well as higher demands for practical conveniences and daily comforts.

The key role that urban design plays in this emerging social shift leads us to the question how human interventions -- that is, the controllable “design” process -- may actually impact the transformation of a city. The topic of this year’s conference, “Urban Design and City Types” hopes to identify two major areas of experimentation in the evolving urban sphere that provide direction to our practice, at the macro and micro scales.

The conference’s first session will discuss the influences of large-scale, or “mega,” projects and key urban developments, with cases from major world metropolises. The assumption here is that the size of a mega-project does not have to overwhelm its new opportunities, and neither is its role limited to that of pure symbolism and simplistic grand gestures. Instead, these kinds of projects offer an opportunity to synthesize old urban fabrics with the new, to cure the scars left by large-scale developments that were indifferent to pedestrian experience, to reconfigure the decline of public grounds and to create a more powerful spatial program that accommodates vibrant city life.

The second session will explore a variety of urban strategies that operate at smaller scales with diversified impacts and outcomes, revealing the ample capacity of the topic. Historical cities, for example, would always benefit from carefully preserving its delicate urban fabric, a key to its communal integrity and economic success. Compared to mega-projects, these modest yet site-specific urban approaches more consciously often pursue an appropriate balance between proposed expansion and context. We are particularly interested in listening to such stories, because they provide an alternative and more sustainable model for Chinese urban growth.

Urban design is an extremely valuable dimension to understand not only the configuration but the transformation of a city. It looks at contextual change instead of individual renovations, it should be a dynamic agent for change instead of a passive reflection of political and economical circumstances. In recognition of this, the School of Architecture at Tsinghua University and EDAW, with Architectural Record-McGraw Hill Construction as media partner, are delighted to co-organize this symposium, with the aim of enriching knowledge of the evolving built environment by supplying inspiring examples set in different times and spaces.