Preservation of Urban Historical Region with Generative Design

 

Dai Ming, Ph.D Candidate

College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University

Email：daiming@mail.tongji.edu.cn

 

 

 

Abstract:

With the booming development in the recent decade, especially the last five years the urbanization process has caused the immoderate expansion of the cities. And the areas around the big cities, especially metropolises have been encroached. Due to the lack of proper and efficient urban planning management and corresponding planning code, some cities are in a state of irrationality. Accordingly, the preservation of urban historical region has been a tough problem for the governors to face. In addition, the officials in charge of the urban planning and land development also feel great pressure of the rapid development of the city and the increasing environmental issues. Sometimes they have not enough energy to go through all the planning projects in details and even have no idea of what it would be when the projects are carried out several years later. Besides all these reasons above, lack of systemic and consummate institution to inspect and evaluate the whole process of the projects is also a big concern for the officials.

On the other hand, the architects and urban planers design or plan a project more imaginarily than rationally, because of the tight working time and lack of proper design and analysis tools in China. Therefore, sometimes even they do not know the indexes of the projects designed by them until they finish these projects. Furthermore they have no sense of the indexes given by the developer or the relevant managers of the urban planning. In addition, there are not any objective procedures to help them to obtain accurate data or information to base the design on and to evaluate what should be preserved in a historical area.

Consequently, that is the aim of this joint research to establish an evaluation system via computer and internet, and based on this system, design a systematic program to help both the officials and designers, planners to manage, design, plan and protect the urban historical region more efficiently and effectively. This program is an open system allowing for different conditions of different areas, different city, different culture and different economic situation of different site.

This program contains these main elements below:

1.        Evaluation system.

2.        Generative design of Urban Historical Region Preservation.

3.        Revaluation system.

4.        Tested by designers and relevant officials.

5.        Optimizing the Generative design of Urban Historical Region Preservation.

 

 


In this research, Shanghai is chosen as a typical sample because of her representative character and unique charm. To some extent, the particular location and urban history have made this city a focus of the world. Before the Opium War in 1840, the city had become an important harbor city in china, because she is located near the outlet of the mother river of China—the Changjiang River and the wealthy inland such as Jiangsu Province and Zhejiang Province. After that, with the establishing of the settlement of the western countries, Shanghai experienced a different urban process from other cities of China. There are two prime periods in the development of this city: the first time is during the First World War, which laid the foundation of the city as a famous international metropolis; the second period is in 1990’s, especially after the Reform and Opening of Shanghai in 1990, which gave Shanghai an opportunity to become a modern international metropolis and also an opening window of China to the world. But through all over 160 years, the same feature of the city expansion and renovation has remained that Shanghai acts as a tie between China and western countries. In regard of the city and the architecture, the meeting and integrating of the local and the western culture are the main characteristic. Due to this important role，Shanghai is one of the keys to research the modern history of China. The development and renovation of Shanghai have also witness the development of Chinese cities. In addition, the residential texture of Shanghai reveals a typical character of the blend of the traditional Chinese housing and rowing house of west countries, which is very different from other cities of China. But with the reform and open to the out world, especially during the recent decade, Shanghai has undergone a booming in city renovation. Many traditional residential areas have been replaced by high-rises. The former identity is missing and the contradiction is how to preserve the identity and traditional city memory as well as accommodate more people in the city.

At the beginning, a practical project is chosen; the character and structure will be summarized and generalized by computer and internet with the convenient interface about this site including exchanging ideas between the designers and local residents. Through generalizing and programming, a program system will be generated and this system will reapply to the project to confirm the validity of the system and be adjusted. And the generative buildings and architectures are mostly shaped by the physical and then cultural environment. Consequently we reshape it by its inner rules such as function and construction and the relationship of the different space. Therefore we can get the architectures meeting our needs with generative program. Another project is also a good example to examine and evaluate the validity of the program. The process of the research is as figure 1.

The site, Jingan Villa，chosen for the GA research is a preservation area in the center of Shanghai, which is of “New Lilong” style with West Nanjing Road in the north, Weihai Road in the south, north Maoming road in the east, Shanxi Road in the west. The planning structure of Jingan villa is composed of a main lane and branch lanes similar to the backbone of fish, the typical texture of Lilong.

The object of this research is to set up a general process and effective system to offer architects, urban planners and urban managers some useful ideas and indispensable references with the help of GA methods and ideas.

 

 

1. Establishment of evaluation system with computer and internet


By the support of computer and internet, a survey is carried out to know the most valuable merits and elements of the given area, including both physical and spiritual aspects.

The results will be the resources of the program to reproduce the characteristic of the unique site of particular culture. They are also the raw material of the generative design of the preservation. This origin is derived from the theory of Kevin Lynch about the city image, the memory of the city.

 

FACTOR

ITEM

THE IMPORTANCE OF EACH ITEM

1

2

3

4

5

PHYSICAL

LOCATION

 

 

 

×

 

AREA

 

 

×

 

 

SUNSHINE

 

 

 

 

×

GREEN AREA

 

 

 

 

×

COURT YARD

 

 

 

 

×

MATERIAL

 

 

 

 

 

TRANSPORTATION

 

 

 

×

 

CULTURAL

/ FORM

PLAN

 

 

×

 

 

SCALE

 

 

 

 

×

COLOR

 

×

 

 

 

DECORATION

 

 

×

 

 

HUMAN RELATIONSHIP

 

 

 

 

×

COMMUNICATION

 

 

 

×

 

 


“Jingan villa”, the “New Lilong”，(figure 2) is the largest New Lilong in shanghai which was built up in 1928. Its structure is composed of a main lane and 24 branch lanes (figure 3, 4). There are 183 units, 34300 M2 floor space in the site of 23500 M2. The units have 6 different plans, 3 along the street (totally 20 units), and 3 inside the site (totally 163 units). The distance between each row of housing is 8.25M and the wall is 9.6M high, with a ratio of 1:0.85. Comparatively Jingan villa has a better and more comfortable convenient living condition than the “Old Lilong”, with proper court yard sunshine, ventilation, sanitation facilities.

The survey is made up of two parts: physical and cultural. The sample table is just as above.

 2. Generative design of urban historical region preservation:


Firstly, this program allows mainly for technological variations as a rational process, that considers the index variations as the starting point. Then, in the second step, the cultural variations will be input according to different situations. In the third step, the program will be set up; the preservations are filtered and generated by the designers.

There are two kinds of methods to generate design in a given site of this project, one is to add, and the other is to subtract (Figure 5, 6). There are also two steps to accomplish the generative process, one is on rational factors, and the other is on cultural factors.

In a given site, the pivotal indexes are the total floor space, plot ratio, building density, boundary lines of roads, building ling, building interval, insolation standard, greening rate, height, etc.

The math formula is as follows:

  (1) Ra =F/A         (Ra: plot ratio; F: total floor space; A: site area) 

  (2) I=D/H          (I: insolation standard; D: building interval; H: total height of the tallest building)

  (3) Rg =G/A    (Rg: greening rate; G: green area; A: site area)

  (4) H=M*h       (H: total height of the tallest building; M: stories; h: storey height)

  (5) F=F1+ F2+ F3+……Fn   (F1: total floor space of building 1; Fn: total floor space of building n)

In the first step, the generation follows the method of subtraction, because this is more suitable to decide the structure of the site. The road structure will restrict the arrangement and the shape of the building.

In the second step, the cultural factors are added into the generation to filter the results of the first generation. For example, different materials will define the height and the inner structure of the building. The space scale (help to form the typical space character of this site) will shape the space distance of the buildings (Figure 7). But the generations also need to be filtered by designers, for there are several factors can not transfer into rational forms (Figure 8). In addition, the program system should be adjusted by other projects.

 

 

3. Revaluation system:

In this stage, the generative preservation plans will be revaluated. Some model samples will be applied to check the coincidence of each other, so that the generative design program will be adjusted according the offset. Also it is necessary that these three procedures will be processed many times to ensure the effectiveness of this program.

Therefore, another project (a urban design in Shaoxing, Zhejang province, China) is selected to testify the validity of the program and find the shortage of the GA program, actually there are some problems caused not by GA itself or that is the program that we can not solved by GA, because that is affected by other irrational factors such as people’s preference, decorations.

Through this step, the factors are divided into two parts: correlated and uncorrelated. Correlated parameters are the factors that have great influence on the results and the uncorrelated parameters are the ones that have little or no influence on the final generative designs. For instance, the court yard, both in the generative and the revaluation process, the court yard can’t be shaped as what we think of. And as to the different story plan, the outline and the balcony are also random; otherwise it adds the possibilities to the alternatives of GA.


In addition, when the road subtraction is added to the building block, the division of the subtraction scale should be adjusted according to different building scale and the position placed should also be regulated. The first grid chosen for the site is too big and should be rectified according to different room space.

 

 

 


4. Tested by designers and relevant officials:

Testing is of great importance for the generative program before its’ practical application in different field. Different users have different version of the program accordingly; furthermore the opening of the system will help them customize their own system meeting their respective requests.

As to designers, the research also gives them some reference and inspiration. The testing is indispensable, which is carried out by urban designers, architecture designers major in urban preservation and urban planners. And the results are effective. To urban designers, this research is very helpful especially in transportation structure and form generation; to architecture designers, the outline and the form; to urban planners, different configurations of different indexes. The random generative designs will inspire the designers and give them more alternatives and more rational thinking.

Testing carried out by urban managers and officials firstly gives them a general idea about the research. Finally, the research works as an intermediary to bridge the concrete indexes and pictorial image. At the mean time, the historical elements will be also blent into the generative process. This research will also help their decision-making and decide proper development intensity.


 

 


5. Optimizing generative design of urban historical region preservation:

In the end, the program will be optimized based on the feedback from different users, but that does not mean the process of adjusting is over, actually it is just a beginning which is a circulation without end. Due to the changing design condition, custom and living pattern, the program system should be also adjusted according to the changes. In addition, different sites have different cultural and preservation concerns, and corresponding historical elements should be added into different program system.

 

 

6. Reference book                

[1]  Celestino Soddu .  GENERATIVE ARTS, proceedings of GA’2002, Milan December 2002

[2]  William·J·Mitchell .《City of Bits ：space，place and ihfobahn》. Massachusetts：The MIT Press，1995

[3]  Gerhard Schmitt .《Information Architecture》. Basel：Birkhauser，1999

[4]  Luigi prestinenza Puglisi .《Hyper architecture》. Basel：Birkhauser，1999

[5]  Luca Galofaro .《Digital Eisenman》. Basel：Birkhauser，1999

[6]  Drewp .Third generation .《The changing meaning of Architecture》. London：Pall Mall Press，1972

 

 

7. Reference website

[01]  GA: http://www.generativeart.com/

[02]  GA: http://www.celestinosoddu.com/

[03]  GA: http://www.artegens.com/

[04]  GA: http://www.fractal.com.cn/

[05]  Architecture Schools: Harvard University, http//www.gsd.Harvard.edu

[06]  Architecture Schools: MIT, http//alberti.mit.edu/ap/ap.html

[07]  Architecture Schools: ETH Zurich, http//www.arch.ethz.ch

[08]  Architecture Schools: Illinois Institute of Technology, http//www. iit.edu

[09]  Architecture Schools: BBS of Tsing Hua University, bbs.tsinghua.edu.cn：23

[10]  Digital Books: 《City of Bits》，William Mitchell，1995：http//www-mitpress.edu/City_of_Bits/

[11]  Virtual Museum: Virtual Palladio Museum, http//www.andrea.gsd.Harvard.edu/palladio/museum.htm

[12]  Virtual Museum: Virtual chair Museum, http//caad.arch.ethz.ch/teaching/nds/schreg

[13]  Virtual Museum: The World Virtual University, http//www.ccon.org/theU/index.html