The Death and Life of Old City

WHAT?

Conflicting Between New and Old, Shanghai

Demolition in Old City, Wuhan

As an accelerated urbanization in China, the old city gradually become a declining core area with klunky streetscape, where gives a sharp contract to surrounding modern urbanscape. How to seek regeneration at minimum cost? How to preserve the livelihood
and context furthest? How to balance the requirements between economy and environment?

Moreover, demolition forced out and moved away original inhabitants from old city, most of them lost their place where can make a
living. Formerly, old town carrying the memory of city and maintaining a way of life, but now is in gradually towards death. How to
breathe new life into existing cultural desert through renewal become the key of death and life in old city.

WHY?

Mixed Materials, Wuhan

Yokohama Concept, Oma; The Manhattan Transcripts, Bernard Tschumi

Real Life in LI-FEN

Wuhan early-modern LI-FEN residential building, a kind of town house generally built from the end of 19th century to the first half of 20th century, mainly distributed in Hankou, is the most representative housing in Wuhan. However, along with the step-up of urban construction, more and more LI-FEN were demolished in the old city replaced by new blocks or bare land.

How to maintain and recover the valuable context of old town? How to repair damaged urban network by implanting new housing and public infrastructure? How to place a sense of localism and regionalism, communicating and clashing with surroundings in terms of cultural, material and form? Therefore, the old city in Hankou can be the best experimental site to test my thesis and reflect above issues.

HOW?

The Museum of all Museums, Federico Soriano & Asociados

Ningbo Museum, Wangshu; Tulou Collective Housing, Urbanus

•  A new renewal schema, the old city conservation should more focus on the culture rather than physical architecture preservation. Keep the local residents there as a whole. First of all, regard neighbors as a renewal unit, for maintaining a familiar neighborhood relationship and community activities. After that, progressive demolishing based on time span to ensure the renewal part won’t crippled its integrity of culture.

New Renewal Schema_ARTIFACT

• Exploring the evolution and development process of LI-FEN residential building and lane in terms of context, space and event.

Evolution of Li-fen and Old City_ARTIFACT

• Carrying on new constructions based on evolution rules of old city by reusing materials from demolishing, meanwhile, rebuilding the relation between residents and where they live.

Material Recirlation and Relation Rebuilt_ARTIFACT

• Attracting and mixing living group to keep diversity and active elements in old town, where not just tourism and business existed, but more of a real life.

Old City Reborn_ARTIFACT