ZIYANG QIU

Reactivating Street Life

Fostering more communal interaction in Longtang

Abstract

The public life that develops between buildings in neighborhoods is undergoing a significant change in the process of growth and modernization, which reflects shifts in residents’ social behaviors and community structure. Traditionally, the presence of people, activities and events define the life of neighborhoods, constituting one of the essential qualities of public space; the mix of outdoor activities is influenced by many conditions, including the architectural framework. When those activities are missing, is it an inevitable result of the reliance on electronic products for entertainment, or unreasonable urban planning under insufficient public policy?

The Longtang, as a unique community form in Shanghai, was once inseparable from thousands of Shanghai residents’ lives. It recorded the cities’ history and culture in a tough time. Life within the Longtang gradually encourages a certain relationship to the public street. However, the original Longtang life is currently missing due to industrialization, reliance automobiles and electronic devices. These have caused life in the Longtang to become dull and monotonous. The Longtang streets are occupied by private cars and bikes, and residents are immersed in the world of television, video and film. As a result, social activities are missing from the streetscape.

The purpose of this thesis is to reactivate the Longtang’s life and improve it to a higher quality by providing various programs and an enticing environment. By analyzing the neighborhood culture, historical value, and residents within the Longtang, it is clear that contact between neighbors is what made these streets special. As a result, the design strategy is to generate a pleasant environment to attract people to stay outside for as much of the day as possible, which dramatically increases the probability of contact at various levels. A system is designed including old and new activities to cover the whole street and take advantage of variable weather conditions, which rearranges the position of programs to establish contact between people that engages sound, smell and sight.

Introduction of Longtang

Longtang is a traditional narrow alleys in Shanghai flanked by residential houses. It quickly appeared and expanded in the concession. These adjacent houses were originally designed to develop the most cost-effective system on the ground. These houses are often called shikumen house, which literally means “stone gate”. This kind of buildings combine the basic principles of the British house with the traditional Chinese house Siheyuan.

The structure inside is like a fish skeleton, and high density of Shikumen hosues leads to a narrow street of skeletal ribs, which is based on a combination of one or two main streets and narrow paths that lead to the side entrance of house.

Many children regard the street as a huge playground, accompanied by various games and related traces left on the street floor, walls and other places.

After the old people sent their children to school, they would sit in the narrow streets, chat with the old people in the neighborhood, or play chess together. This has long been a static scene.

The loss of Longtang life

Today’s alleys have lost the hustle and bustle of the past, replaced by the modern products, motor vehicles occupy a lot of street space, and the random placement of bicycles and debris lead to the depression. Only the plants cultivated by residents add a touch of greenery to the alley, but it still does not reach the standard community configuration.

Reasons and purpose

In the contemporary era, there are too many attractive points to stay in. The elderly sitting at the table watching TV every day has become a required course. Children are addicted to video games and are not willing to go out to meet new friends. At the same time, the narrow public spaces, the lack of Greenland, and facilities further exacerbated the situation. Therefore, the primary purpose of the thesis is to try to stimulate or reactivate the original life in Longtang, and further improve its quality so that the development of the times will not eliminate it.

Even though there are many activities exist, they can not support the street life because there are not sufficient public space, only opening the entrance to indicate what function it is.From the section, we can find that the public space account for a very low percentage of the gross area. The width of street is approximately 6 meters. Which is totally occupied by driving zone and parking zone.

For the new style of Long Tang houses. Normally one unit would accommodate one family. But there are some exceptions. In order to maximize the profits, The owner rent the unit out to several families. As a result, That building becomes a multi-family residential. Moreover, The main entrance shifted to back street because the living room on the first floor transformed to bedroom. Only public kitchen has access to the staircase without invading other people’s private space.The previous main entrance is abandoned, the courtyard and that entrance have potential to be reused as a semipublic space.

In the past, there are many interesting activities existed. But currently, traffic jam happened in the street, narrow space and dead end for vehicles are main reasons.Only necessary activities like compulsory-going to school or to work are more or less independent of the exterior environment exist for the whole street.

Examples of commercial and communal offering that improving street life through semipublic spaces in some buildings

Enticing fragrances stemming from rich plant scheme and other offerings

l have aromatic plant with enticing fragrances released through the whole street to stimulate human’s smell. Encourage people to stay outside for a long time. the plant scheme is available in Shanghai according to local climatic features.

Sound climate and sources

Arranging the position of activities depends on their sound climate. For example, Tea houses and library are located in a more silent environment far away from the busy main road. Other busy activities are distributed in different part to make the sound stemmed from street is fluctuant.

Enhancing visual contact among people

Enhancing visual contact among people, those contacts are not only bidirectional to two groups of people next to each other, but also unidirectional to plants. And also have a surveillance from private space to the public street.

Proposed retractable shading devices

The retractable shading devices are necessary after taking climate into consideration. To make sure the activities continuous under any conditions.

Ultimately, we have a wonderful street life including sport project. Sport store can sell any thing we need for playing pingpong game, playing soccer. And outdoor fitness equipments for elderly people.

We have renovated grocery designed by natural material. And street vendors sitting on the opposite of the grocery’s entrance.

Public cinema involves many interesting activities. Wall-mounted furniture allow people to assemble the furniture according to the activities.

The tea house provide chairs and tables beside the street with panorama view, the library kiosk attached the wall allow children come to borrow books and have seating under the shading device.