Chengdu CSR : factory town 2.0 : urban regeneration of a socialist factory town in the west of China

CHENGDU CSR: FACTORY TOWN 2.0

URBAN REGENERATION OF A SOCIALIST FACTORY TOWN IN THE WEST OF CHINA by Junjiao Gan

Architect

Zhejiang University, China, 2009

SUBMITTED TO THE DEPARTMENT OF ARCHITECTURE IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF SCIENCE IN ARCHITECTURE STUDIES AT THE

MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY June 2017

@ 2017 Junjiao Gan. All rights reserved.

The author hereby grants to MIT permission to reproduce and to distribute publicly paper and electronic copies of this document in whole or in part in any medium now known or hereafter created.

Signature redacted

Signature of Author:

Department of Architecture May 1 9th 2017

Certified by:

Signature redacted

Brent D. Ryan

Signature

redacted

Certified by: _

Rafi Segal Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism

/ Thesis Supervisor

Signed by:

Signature redacted

I Sheila Ken edy Professor of Archite ure Chair of the Department Committee on Graduate Stuents

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THESIS COMMITTEE

Thesis Supervisor

Brent D Ryan

Associate Professor Rafi Segal

Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism

Thesis Reader

Shuqi Gao Phd Candidate of Xi Qiu

Phd Candidate of

of Urban Design and Public Policy

Qinghua University

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Victor Sanz

Chengdu CSR: Factory Town 2.0

Urban Regeneration of A Socialist Factory Town in the West of China

Submitted to the Department of Architecture on May 25, 2017 in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Architecture.

ABSTRACT

This thesis is to explore the urban design strategies for the regeneration of a Socialist factory town, Chengdu CSR, in Chengdu, a major city in the west of China.

A socialist factory town is an urban composition of both municipal and

manufacture functions. It is a top-down system in the control of the cen-tral government in order to execute its economic and social policies di-rectly. Factory towns are established on all different economic sectors, agriculture, military control, steel, oil and machinery. The establishment of socialist factory towns industrialized the region and brought in millions of population from the east and north parts of China.

The factory town studied in the thesis, China South Railway, Chengdu (Chengdu CSR) is focused on the maintenance of locomotives and car-riages from 1951. However, the reform of economy in the 1980s shifted the planned economy to the market economy which also led to the seri-ous decline of factory towns from the 1990s after their forty-year extraor-dinary growth. At present, the factory town has become a negative place in the city disconnected with surrounding urban environment suffering with outdated infrastructure.

Through the research on the history of factory towns in the aspect of de-sign, it is concluded that the three design principles of previous factory towns, Monumentality, Mono-function Zoning and 2D Design, created the space without the flexibility and diversity required by rising service industry and technology based enterprises. It is one of the major rea-sons for the decline of the campus of the socialist factory towns.

princi-Mahjong, these design principles are further developed into one major urban strategy, Mahjong.

This strategy shifts the previous linear manufacture factory to be a plat-form, Factory Town 2.0, which accelerates the connections and interac-tions between Chengdu Institute of Technology, Chengdu CSR, original equipment manufacturers (OEM), hundreds of startups and medium-size enterprises (SME). In addition, the collision and overlaying of different functions creates a dynamic urban environment curating various events all the time during the day and bringing livelihood to the community. This thesis proposes new design principles, Urbanity and Temporality, which can be applied into different regeneration projects in the socialist factory towns in China, since they were all designed previously under the same principles.

Thesis Supervisor: Brent D Ryan

Title: Associate Professor of Urban Design and Public Policy Thesis Supervisor: Rafi Segal

Title: Associate Professor of Architecture and Urbanism

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The past three years at MIT (with a gap year in between) are the most unforgettable experience in my life. It was a lonely march at first in the autumn of 2014, but now graduating with so much love and help from the new friends and companions in this great community.

To Brent Ryan, my thesis advisor, for your knowledgeable advice in my research phase and your reassurance in my design phase.

To Rafi Segal, my thesis advisor, for your guidance and advice through my whole two-year study at MIT.

To Xi Qiu, my thesis reader, for your powerful capability summarizing my 5-month research into 3 words which is the turning point of my thesis.

To Suqi Gao, my thesis reader, for your critical understanding on the planning practice in China.

To Jiakun Liu, for your recommendation to MIT and your inspiration on always looking into local context searching for unique urban and archi-tectural prototypes.

To Bin Tan, CEO of Shengsanqiang Co. Ltd, for your great generosity of guiding me through the campus of Chengdu CSR and sharing your family story.

To Jiahan Li, Director of Engineering, for your impressive narrative on both your family and Chengdu CSR.

-_J

on my research and strategy.

Especially to Xiang Xu, for your bold support and company through this

257 day, 20 hour and 10 second journey of thesis, working together

re-lentlessly in our studio 4-515, a number which I will never forget. And to our SMArchS team, Milan Outlaw, Luisa de Lucena, Garine Boghossian, Jie Bao and Jamie Farrell, for great help and inspiring comments.

To those who helped me in the final weeks, Boliang Du, Danyang Lou, Haoran Gao, Jieping Wan, Qinrong Liu, Weiqian Liu and Xu Zhang (chronological sequence).

To Song Xue and Yifan Chen, for cheering me up by making posi-tive-thinking phone calls every weekend this year.

To the Education Foundation of Zhejiang University, for the financial support provided for my study at MIT making this great experience hap-pen.

And finally,

To my parents, my mom and dad, for always be the ones to turn to at any circumstances. Without your support and help, I will not able to have this amazing experience without any hesitation. The gratefulness is be-yond words.

TABLE of CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

01

SOCIALIST FACTORY TOWNS IN CHINA

14 What is a Socialist Factory Town?

19 History of Factory Towns

21 Third Front Construction Movement

23 Achievements of the Third Front Movement 23 The Decline of Socialist Factory Towns

02

CHENGDU LOCOMOTIVE MAINTENANCE COMPANY 28 Chengdu, a Hotpot City

36 Two Axis of Chengdu City

41 History of Chengdu CSR

03

RESEARCH ON THE DESIGN OF FACTORY TOWNS 55 Three Design Principles Making Previous Factory Towns 65 Precedents Study

04

URBAN DESIGN STRATEGY 81 Mahjong Strategy

85 Block Typologies of Chengdu 109 Collision of Bands

116 Masterplan Design

05

ANCHOR PROGRAMS DESIGN 162 Hub

180 University Park

196 Headquarter Office for Chengdu CSR

210 Physical Model of Park

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1.1 What is a socialist factory town?

Socialist factory town is a unique urban phenomenon in previous social-ist countries. It is an urban composition of both manufacture and munic-ipal functions (FIG 1-1) established from the 1950s due to the radical industrialization and urbanization process of China.

Of different scales, these factory towns have a complete manufacture

system for different economic sectors (FIG 1-3). At the same time, dif-ferent from factory towns in other countries, like the US where factory towns are related to "production", "exploitation" and "profit"1, Chinese socialist factory towns also have a municipal system which consists of all the public service facilities for their residents, like hospital, apartments, schools, retails, malls and all the amenities for a small city. These fa-cilities are also separated from the neighboring cities or towns due to its classification requirement or policy reasons. In addition, the Hu Kou (residency) of all the residents is under the operation of these factory towns making these factory towns the cultural and physical enclaves in the city.

Inspired by the Soviet Union, the establishment of Socialist Factory Towns is initiated by the central government of China in order to set up an industry system within a short time. In the early years of Peo-ple's Republic of China, China was a country making most of its living from agriculture and vending its natural resources. In order to establish a complete industry system, the government launched several political movements (FIG1-2), Great Leap Forward (1958 to 1962) and Third Front Construction Movement (1964 to 1980), to invest all the possible resources in the industrialization.2

Ver-Components of a Socialist Factory Town FIG 1-1

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Different kinds of factory towns were established in different sectors of economy affecting the area up to 1/3 of China's territory. The factory town researched in this thesis is the factory town in the city of Chengdu, the capital city of Sichuan Province, focusing on the maintenance of locomotives and carriages running between Chengdu and Chongqing. There are also other factory towns specializing in different factors, like steel (Panzhihua, FIG 1-7), oil (Daqin, FIG 1-5) and military control (Shihezi).

3 Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/

wiki/XinjiangProduction andConstructionCorps

1.2 History of Socialist Factory Towns

Before the establishment of factory towns in the 1950s, China was a country making its poor living mostly from agriculture and exportation of natural resources. The light industry manufacturers were located

mere-ly in the northeast and east coast regions of China originated from the

colonization of Japan, Germany and other western countries. There was almost no heavy industry in China by 1949, after the war time lasting for about 100 years from 1840 when there were the First Opium War, The Second Opium War, the World Wars and the Civil War.

In order to establish a complete industry system as a fundamental com-ponent for further development of economy, the central government applied a series of policies and political movements to accelerate the industrialization process. Third Front Movement' initiated the huge in-vestment on the projects and factory towns in the west of China focus-ing on national defense, technology, basic industries (manufacturfocus-ing, mining, metal, and electricity), transportation and other infrastructures

investments .

1 Chen, Donglin. Third Front Movement: The Development of the West China.

Cen-tral Party School of the Communist Party of China Press, 2003: p 1-p2

Distribution of Factory Towns FIG 1-8 +

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Chengdu---Third Front Construction Movement Area

1.2.1 Third Front Movement

The establishment of Socialist Factory Towns can be dated back to the early 1950s which could be earlier than most of the political movements. However, the Third Front Movement initiated most of the establishments of Socialist Factory Towns in the west of China, especially in the region of Sichuan Province (FIG 1-8).

The Third Front Movement was a massive industrialization as well as ur-banization process of China from 1964 to the middle of 1980s. It took the advantage of immigrating the skilled population and the industry system in the east of China to industrialize and urbanize the west part of China.

The Third Front was a geo-military concept. There had already been tension with Soviet Union and Vietnam by the time of 1960s in the un-derstanding of Chairman Mao about the neighboring environment of China. In order to secure the industry system of China, Mao decided to establish another industry system away from all the borders which may be vulnerable for regional disputes. Therefore, 13 provinces includ-ing Shaanxi, Gansu, Ninclud-ingxia, Qinclud-inghai, Sichuan, Chongqinclud-ing, Yunnan, Guizhou, Neimenggu, Henan, Hunan, Hubei and Guangxi, were chosen including some autonomous regions to accept the massive investments from the east and the northeast.

Between 1964 and 1980, China invested 205 billion yuan in the Third Front Region, accounting for 39.01% of total national investment in ba-sic industries and infrastructure.' Millions of factory workers, cadres, intellectuals, military personnel, and tens of millions of construction workers, flocked to the Third Front region. More than 1,100 large and medium-sized projects were established during the Third Front period. After years of construction and immigration a new industry system was established in the west of China (FIG 1-9).

Socialist Factory Towns become the most effective urbanization and industrialization tool for the movement. It both established an efficient manufacture factory, but also function as an administration unit for the immigrated population from the east to the west, speaking mandarin in-1 Third Front. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ThirdFront_(China)

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stead of dialects and having different food preferences. Due to the envi-ronmental impact of industry operation, most of the projects were located in rural area or in the outskirts of neighboring cities making these factory towns cultural enclaves with to some degree distinctive difference from local communities. Most of immigrants and their next generations stayed in these regions which in the later decades deeply changed the structure of population and generated new local culture in many aspects, like food and dialects.

Since all these provinces were the most interior and agricultural regions in China in the lack of infrastructure, many infrastructure projects were also applied to connect these regions with the east coast and the capital. The very first railway in the west of China, Chengdu - Chongqing Rail-way (FIG 1-9), was constructed as well. The factory town researched in this thesis is established in order to maintain the locomotives and car-riages running on this railway.

1.2.2 Achievements of the Third Front Movement

The Achievement of the Third Front Movement is dominant in both the urban and industry development for the targeting area of China. It nar-rowed down the gap of economy development between different provinc-es. In 1963, 7 western provinces: Yunnan, Guizhou, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Ningxia, and Qinghai, accounted for 10.5% of China's industrial output. This ratio went up to 13.26% by 1978.

In the aspect of infrastructure, 9 railways were completed, Cheng-du-Kunming, Chongqing-Guiyang, Guiyang-Kunming, Zhuzhou-Guid-ing, Xiangfan-ChongqZhuzhou-Guid-ing, Jiaozuo-Zhiyu, Zhicheng-Liuzhou, Yangping Guan-Ankang, Xining-Geermu. Based on these railways, a grid of rail-way transportation connecting all the major cities in the west was also completed in the movement, linking Chengdu, Chongqing, Kunming, Xian, Wuhan, Changsha, and Lanzhou to the eastern cities like Shang-hai, Shenzhen and Beijing. 1

One of the typical example is the industry system of national defense is also established in the region of Sichuan Province, called Two Points and One Line (FIG 1-9).

1 Chen, Donglin. Third Front Movement: The Development of the West China.

Cen-tral Party School of the Communist Party of China Press, 2003: pl

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1.2.3 The Decline of Socialist Factory Towns

Socialist Factory Towns had their glorious days for more than 30 years. In their golden age, a position in the factory means a well-paid wage, pension, a health insurance and free housing. With all these advantag-es, workers in these factory towns were also highly respected in the public life of the society. Working class was always represented as the most dominant and advanced class of the society. Therefore, being a worker wearing a uniform of the factory was the dream for most of the young people in China from the 1950s to the 1980s.

These factories were efficient at the beginning of industrialization. It in-dustrialized the west and middle provinces in China. However, it is not flexible in a free market economy. The whole planned economy was shifted to a Free Market Economy from 1978. Great loss was recorded in most of factories towns from the middle of 1980s, due to the applica-tion of a free market. Then the central government began to reform the system of factory towns by laying off both factories and workers.

These factory towns were the major engines of China's economy from the 1950s to the 1990s until the Reform of State Own Enterprises in

1994 initiated by the current Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji.1 Since then

mil-lions of workers were laid. Many of factories were stated as bankrupted and privatized.

'Xia Gang' (laid off) then became a phenomenon in the Chinese society. From the 1950s to the 1990s, workers once admitted to a factory can never be laid off by the factory. However, the advantage of a socialist system was abused to make the whole system redundant and ineffi-cient. In 1997, Factories taking the advantage of resigning contracts with workers laid off millions of workers in order to make the whole system ef-ficient again. Many workers who used to dream of spending their whole life in the factory and retiring with a respectful pension, but they were suddenly laid off in their 40s and 50s. Many mournful stories were pop-ular in the newspaper telling stories about the struggle of families who were laid off.

1 Zhu, Rongji, and June Y. Mei. Zhu Rongji on the Record: The Road to Reform 1991-1997. Brookings Institution Press, 2013: p366-p378

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2.1 Chengdu, a Hotpot City

Chengdu is the capital city of Sichuan Province, located in the west of China at the bottom of Sichuan Basin. It was famous for its mild

weath-er and productive land for thousands of years, known as the Tian Fu

Zhi Guo which means the kingdom of Heaven. It is the most populated region in the west China with more than 100 million population.' The arrival of factory towns from the 1950s turned the whole region from an agricultural land to be an internationally famous metropolis for the whole west part of China. It is a major component in the industry system estab-lished from the 1950s connecting to other cities by the railway system. It used to be specialized in machinery from the 1950s, but now in elec-tronic and serving as a gateway city in the west.

Chengdu is also a city culturally famous in the world now. Original cul-tural elements of Chengdu will be Hotpot (FIG 2-4), Mahjong (FIG 2-5)

and Panda (FIG 2-6).

Hotpot

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Hotpot is cooking food, pork, beef, lamb and vegetables, in a simmering hot pot. The cooking work and the cooked food will be shared by up to 10 participants sit-ting at a round table usually.

Mahjong

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Mahjong is a tile-based game played

by 4 people together. There will be 144

tiles marked with Chinese characters and symbols on the table. A participant will win the game by managing the tiles at his hand to be one of the few certain pre-fixed sets while preventing other par-ticipants doing so.

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Panda is the icon for Chengdu, since the Chengdu Research Base of Giant Panda is located in the outskirt of Chengdu. The national park where generations of Pan-da lived is also located in the mountains one hour drive from the city of Chengdu.

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Chengdu is a gateway city in west China. It connects the east with the west and the north with the south with high speed railway. Chengdu city is also the starting point of Sichuan-Tibet Road, one of the two roads into the Tibetan area.

Due its identity as a gateway city connecting many regions in China, it was one of the most popular choices for the establishment of factory towns. From the 1950s to the 1980s, a series of factory towns were set up in the outskirts of Chengdu city. Because of the lack of skilled workers and experienced engineers, thousands of workers and engineers were emigrated from the northeast and Shanghai area to support the con-struction and operation of factory towns in Chengdu. The immigration kept on for decades until the reform of economy in the 1980s, when the processing trade took off in the provinces on the east coast of China. All of these immigrants first landed in those factory towns as workers and engineers. The arrival of factory towns and immigrants industrialized the city shifting it from an agricultural city to be an industrialized metropolis

having impact over all the cities in the west of China. 1

1 Zhou, Mingchang. Third Front Movement and the Modernization and Urbanization

of Sichuan Province. Contemporary China History Studies, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2014.

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At first, factory towns and the city of Chengdu were physically and cultur-ally separated from each other. Factory towns were away from the city in the middle of rural land and became the enclaves of different culture and dialects. People living in the factory towns may have a different prefer-ence of food and speak a different dialect. Local residents can definitely distinguish the person who is from those factory towns.

From the map of 1989, there is still a distinctive line, which is diminish-ing, between the urban fabric of Chengdu city and that of those factory towns just the like the picture of a 'Yuan Yang' hotpot. However, as the urbanization progressed in Chengdu, these factory towns have already been taken in and merged with the city fabric of Chengdu. At present, these immigrants lived generations in Chengdu. 50% of the population in Chengdu is originated from the Shanghai and northeast area of China.'

Now just like the merged urban fabric, Chengdu is a hotpot city where different culture and groups of people meet and integrate with each oth-er.

1 Chengdu Population. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chengdu

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2.3 History of Chengdu CSR

The establishment of Chengdu CSR is to provide the maintenance ser-vice for all the trains running on the Chengdu-Chongqing Railway which is also the very first railway in the west of China. It was started in 1950 and completed in 1952.

At the same of the construction the railway in 1950, a railway factory was planned to be set up servicing the trains running on this railway. Since there is barely no railway industry ever existing in the area of Si-chuan Province. The central government decided to move the railway factory in an eastern province, Anhui, to Chengdu for the service.

In 1951, the factory was moved from Anhui Province to Chongqing with

521 workers temporarily. In the summer of 1952, residential apartments

were completed in the campus of Chengdu. In the November of 1952, all the workers and facilities were moved again to the campus in Chengdu. The new factory was named Chengdu Locomotive Maintenance Facto-ry.

In 1957, hundreds of engineers were emigrated from other railway fac-tories in Hebei, Shandong, Liaoning Provinces which are the provinces in the northeast of China, making the population of the factory town up to 1000.

In the year of 1958, based on the skills and technology obtained from the maintenance of locomotives and carriages, the factory town set up its own steel plant and began to manufacture locomotives itself. In order to accomplish this goal, the factory hired 5,229 workers making its pop-ulation up to 6,653. In 1959, the factory manufactured 20 locomotives and 57 carriages at the same time. It also maintained 104 locomotives. In 1964, the factory achieved its record of locomotive maintenance in its own history with 227 locomotives repaired. It was also leading in 14 different indexes among all the maintenance factory.

However, from the summer of 1966, the factory was shut down due to the launch of Cultural Revolution. Until 1976, the factory was struggling with the negative impact from political movements. Battles between dif-ferent political groups in the factory broke out. An armed troop was de-ployed into the factory to put the whole factory under military control. The factory was closed for more than one year until 1968. The manufac-ture line was reopened in 1968, but running inefficiently with 1/10 of the previous productivity. This situation continued for about 10 years to the end of 1976.

When Chairman Mao died in 1976, his successors began to put the country back into order again. The planned economy was shifted into the free market economy in the 1980s which deeply improved the effi-ciency of the factory. In 1982, the factory reached the record set in 1968 with the maintenance service on 220 locomotives. In 1993, the factory made its record on achieving revenue of more than 200 million RMB. In the golden age of Chengdu Locomotive Maintenance Factory from the 1950s to the 1980s, it was the most attractive choice for young grad-uates looking for a job or anxious parents looking for a potential bride or groom . Its campus represented the highest quality of an urban life in Chengdu in the 1970s with its own swimming pool, theatre and natural gas system.

However, in the year of 1995, the factory was recorded a loss of more than 7 million due to the sharp decline of orders on its maintenance ser-vice. It was the first loss from the struggling 1970s. In response to it, it separated its maintenance department and its fabrication department to

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3.1 Three Design Principles Making Previous Factory Towns

In order to propose an urban regeneration plan for the campus of Cheng-du CSR, 10 masterplans have been researched to look for the underlying reason of decline in the aspect of design. From the research on the mas-terplans of 10 factory towns established on different economic factors, Panzhihua (steel), Tumushuhe (agriculture), Factory 420 (machinery), Chengdu Milling (machinery), Alaer (military), Daqin (oil), Factory 132 (aviation), Chengdu CSR (railway) and Beitun (agricultural), three de-sign principles were concluded, Monumentality, Mono-function Zoning and 2D Design. It is the space created by these design principles which could not fulfill the flexibility and dynamics of the rising service industry that contributed to the decline of the factory towns.

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Monumentality of these masterplans comes from two spatial elements, the symmetrical axis and the huge public space in the cen-ter of these plans. The symmetry and huge squares created vast vacancy in the center of the city where there is no space with in-timate scale for diversified events, but the presence of discipline and order.

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In the masterplans of previous factory towns, districts and blocks are distinguished as com-mercial, residential and manufacture ones which create singularity of programs in one block and at different time during the day. Blocks with mono-function are less dynamic compared with ones with different programs overlapping with each other.

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2D Design refers to the masterplan designed

only applying the standard geometries, like cross, rectangle, triangle and circle. All the previous factory towns were designed and built under the requirements of resource-sav-ing and efficiency. Therefore, standard ge-ometry becomes the most popular choice for planners and architects for the efficiency of both design and construction.

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The space generated from these design principles was efficient in the time of mass production and manufacture. However, the rise of service industry and different lifestyle of citizens require the space with more flex-ibility and various scale which could not be fulfilled by the previous masterplans with mono-function Zoning and standard geome-try. Therefore, the decline of factory towns in the terms of space requirement is inevitable.

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3.2 Precedents Study

Realized that the design principles, Monumentality, Mono-function Zon-ing and 2D Design, contribute largely to the decline of socialist factory towns. Therefore, new principles should be proposed both as criticism and efforts for solutions.

Besides the masterplans of previous factory towns, many precedents were studied for understanding their urban strategies. Among all the projects, the works from the Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) were inspiring on bringing the complexity and the congestion of cities into the projects. Band, an agglomeration of different urban and archi-tectural programs, is a popular conceptual tool for understanding and operating projects of different scales, especially for large-scale proj-ect which needs abstraction of programs for design efficiency.' The designers from OMA used bands to conceptualize the projects into an aggregate of bands of different programs intersecting and overlaying with each other. The intersection and overlaying of bands will create unprecedented typologies and bring the complexity and congestion of programs into the project making it integrated into the urban system of

the urban environment. 2

1 Lucan, Jacques. OMA - Rem Koolhaas: Architecture 1970-1990. Princeton Archi-tectural Press, 1991: p8 6

2 Lucan, Jacques. OMA - Rem Koolhaas: Architecture 1970-1990. Princeton Archi-tectural Press, 1991: p3 9

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3.3 Bands, Urbanity and Temporality

OMA intersected and overlaid bands with each other in order to sustain the complexity and congestion of the cities into the urban and architec-tural projects.' Inspired by the works by OMA, the application of bands is further developed into new design principles for future regeneration design of factory towns. New principles create Urbanity and Temporality

by intersecting and overlying Bands of different programs. Band is a

spatial element, while the Urbanity and Temporality are the results of operation of bands.

The previous principles are Monumentality, Mono-function Zoning and

2D Design. The space created under these principles lacks both vitality

and flexibility. In response it, the intersection and overlaying of bands create urbanity and temporality which refer to the space with dynamic events and adaptable space.

The design strategies based on the new design principles will shift the previous factory towns to be more adaptable for future development.

1 Aureli, Pier Vittorio. OMA. The First Decade. naiolo, 2015: p23

Basic Spatial Element - Band

An agglomeration of urban programs

with spatial or perceptual continuity and

functional similarity, despite their forms

or quantity. It allows the ambiguity of

forms and the flexibility of activities. It

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The urban dynamics at different time

during 24 hours.

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4.1 Mahjong Strategy

Mahjong is a tile-based game originated from China in the Qing Dynasty. Commonly, it is considered to be and prosperous from Chengdu area. It is a game usually played by four participants, sometimes up to five. It is a game with the 144 tiles marked with Chinese characters and symbols. Each player will receive 13 tiles at the very beginning of the game. The play can switch his tile by drawing a new one and replace a current one with it. It is intellectually intense for users to manage his 13 tiles to be the winning set in advance of the other three participants by the table. This game is deeply involved with competition, strategy and calculation quite similar to the making of city. The making of city is also involving with competition and compromise between several different stakeholders.'

Inspired by this local card game, Mahjong, which is also one of the most important cultural icon for Chengdu, these new design principles are de-veloped into my urban design strategy, Mahjong Strategy. This strategy is intended to extend bands of various urban typologies from the neigh-boring city into the site and collide them to create unprecedented urban and architectural typologies which will bring urbanity and temporality to the declining factory town.

1 Mahjong. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahjong

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In order to extend bands from the neighbor-ing cities and the university, local blocks built at different time in the history of Chengdu were studied to find optimized urban typol-ogies.

The first block is originated from a map of Qing Dynasty printed in 1879. It is quite a thin block with narrow streets in between each other. These blocks are distinctively different the surround area, because they are the blocks, Hutong, emigrated directly from Beijing. During the whole time period of Qing Dynasty, hundreds of Manchu people were living in these blocks deployed by the central government.

The other blocks were residential blocks for Factory Town (built in 1970), residen-tial blocks of real estate development (built

in 1990) and mega blocks (built in 2005). Based on the research of these blocks, op-timized urban typologies of different kinds were proposed.

University Campus

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Five Bands

Concluded from the research on the previous blocks of Chengdu, five bands of different typologies were concluded, University Campus, Commercial, Res-idential, Ecological and Business. With these five bands, the neighboring city and the university were extended and collided in the site of Chengdu CSR.

85

University Campus Band

University Campus Band is not exactly the direct extention of the campus of Chengdu Institute of Technology, but the programs related to education, research and cre-ative activities with low density in its phys-ical form.

University Band is stretching along the edge of the site where the high speed railway locates extending the campus of Chengdu Institute of Techology into the site colliding with the campus of Chengdu CSR.

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When walking in the city of Chengdu, he will notice that all the streets are covered with re-tails surrounding the residential apartments inside the block which create a more dynam-ic atmosphere and better urban life quality.

! 1 The high density of commercial programs in the city of Chengdu is due to its highly populated urban environment. As a count-er response to the mono-function zoning of previous factory towns where residential and commercial programs are separated from each other distinctively. Therefore, commer-cial band will be the commercommer-cial programs stretching along streets dividing the residen-tial programs into smaller grids.

400m x 400m Monofunction Zoning Commercial Residential Residential 200m x 200m Multifunction Block

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In the research of the blocks in Chengdu, mega blocks with gated communities popped out from the 2000s. Mega blocks cutting off the connections between the residents and the city. An optimized typology with small-er blocks and middle rise residential slabs is proposed in order to create a more dynamic community.

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Chengdu, with its amenable climate and fertile land, has become the most populat-ed region of China for thousands of years. Therefore, a landscape where a land will be divided into smaller plot with different vege-tation is generated from its large population. The ecological band is filled with the land-scape typology with different programs and diversified vegetation.

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Business band is stretching into the site with its tower typology along major roads, be-cause of the real estate development.

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4.3 Collision of Bands

Five bands are stretched into the site colliding with the existing campus of Chengdu CSR. The darker of the color means more of the bands colliding with each other. The campus of Chengdu CSR is the darkest part on the map above. The collision be-tween these bands connects the site with the city and the university. It also generates unprecedented urban and architectural typologies consisting with the design principles mentioned previously, urbani-ty and temporaliurbani-ty.

The next part of the thesis is to spacially visualize the collision and the urban and architectural typol-ogies generted from this process.

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Three Spatial Elements on site

After the demolition, there will three kinds of spatial elements left on the site, field, lines and objects. These are large vacant space, railways and facto-ries. These elements altogether act as the band of heritage or site context in the collision with different bands. When each of the three spatial elements collide with the stretching bands from the city and university, unprecedented typologies and programs will be created on the site.

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After the demolition, there will three kinds of spatial elements left on the site, field, lines and objects. These are large vacant space, railways and facto-ries. These elements altogether act as the band of heritage or site context in the collision with different bands. When each of the three spatial elements collide with the stretching bands from the city and university, unprecedented typologies and programs will be created on the site.

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4.4 Masterplan Design

Different bands are extended from the neighbor-ing urban environment into the site interactneighbor-ing and overlaying each other. The collision between bands will be projected first into urban typologies and then into architectural typologies. This chapter is about how the collision will generate a masterplan for the campus of Chengdu CSR reconnecting it to the city and bringing in the flexibility of programs for its fu-ture development.

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locomo-tive will go consequently through the main ce factories for each of their components. At 60 fter all the procedures for the maintenance, the train will be stored in the parking yard and delivered back to

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Products: Bearing Component Annual Revenue: 50,000,000 RMB Employees: 385

Skilled Workers: 315/385 Engineers: 12/385

Market Share: >70%

Inspiration from a mini-manufacturer

The current linear system was so powerful in the days when there was still the planned economy. However in the days of free market economy, this linear system was without fexibility to adapt to the diversified need from customers. During the trip to Chengdu CSR, a small manufacturer, Shengsan-qiang Co. Ltd., in the site of Chengdu CSR was no-ticed. It is just 1/100 scale of the factory town, only focusing on the bearing for the locomotives.

119

Fabrication and Storage )ormitory

Administration Office

Amenity Facilities

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History of Shengsanqiang

90% Market Share

Sharp Decline in Economy Reform

Established by Chengdu CSR Laid off and Privatized by Its Engineers 20th Anniversary of Establishment >90% Market Share

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1986 1994 1996 2006 2008 2016

Reform on State Owned Enterprise Wenchuan Earthquake

Laied off 400,000,000 Workers National Economic Stimulus Policy

History Of Shengsanqiang

This small fabrication factory was established in

1985 which used be a branch of Chengdu CSR.

However, in the economic reform starting on State Own Enterprises in 1994, this fabrication factory was almost laid off by Chengdu CSR. Luckily, its engineers stood out and privatized the factory. It embraced the free market and gradually took up to

90% of the whole market of bearing for trains. It is

an inspiration for me to propose a future for Cheng-du CSR.

FACTORY TOWN 1.0 FACTORY TOWN 1.5 -LINE Chengdu CSR Chengdu CSR MaintnonceFabrication 2 DisasemblyFabrication 3 Maintanence LocomotivesLcmtvs FIG 4-43

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Inspired by the history of Shengsanqiang, it is real-ized that each component of the manufacture line of Chengdu CSR may have the potential to be in-dependent from the factory town, taking orders not only from the factory town, but also from the market directly. Gradually, the linear factory town would be able to shift from a line to be a platform where OEMs, SME and Startups could be connected with each other into differently sized groups according to the specific requirements of the customers. It is like shifting the factory town from a single tree to be a forest. A single tree can never compete with a forest where there is a complete ecosystem.

Part 1

Typology Generated from the Collision between Vacant Space and Bands

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There are four different bands colliding into each other, Business Band, Residential Band, University Band and Commercial Band. A new block

typolo-gy is generated from the collision as a hybrid block

with different programs and architectural typologies consisting of towers, slabs, low rises and plinth.

127

Urbanity

FIG 4-46

A section of the new block typology shows how

dif-ferent programs of retails, R&D space, apartments and office can co-exist in a same block sharing its infrastructure. The interaction and overlapping of different programs makes the block more flexible in programs than the previous mono-functional blocks in the existing factory towns.