Event — UKNA seminar

3rd Urban Knowledge Network Asia Seminar

Jointly hosted by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft and IIAS

3rd UKNA Seminar jointly hosted by the Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, TU Delft and IIAS

Convenors: Dr Ir Gregory Bracken, Ir. Tom Kuipers, Dr Paul Rabe, Ir Tan Gien San

Programme & abstracts

Introduction to the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA)
Dr Ir Gregory Bracken

The Creation and Aesthetic Appreciation of the Plants and Landscape of the Summer Palace, Beijing, China by Dr Zhao Di

As elements for landscaping, emotion expression and space construction, plants occupy an essential role in the classical garden systems. The Summer Palace is one of the most outstanding examples among classical Chinese royal gardens and currently also the only imperial garden with well preservation in the northwestern suburb of Beijing. Its predecessor Qingyi Garden was constructed during the reign of Emperor Qianlong of Qing dynasty (1750) with natural landscape as the basis. Modeled after the West Lake in Hangzhou for its design and reform, Qingyi Garden has assimilated various classical Chinese techniques for garden making. Plants furnishing in the garden during that period was quite particular, vegetation flourishing and clear four seasons, which reflects the essence of designing concept and methods of plants cultivation in Chinese royal gardens. This speech will make an introduction to the evolution of plants historical landscape in the Summer Palace, features of plant furnishing and aesthetic appreciation of plant. Besides, by combining Qiaolong’s poems and current remains of ancient trees, it will also explore Emperor Qianlong’s garden making thinking and aesthetic taste of plants with the relics of Gaichun Garden as a living example.

Study on the Urban National Park (Urban World Heritage) Boundary Marking, Design and Management by Dr Hu Yike

Rapid urbanization presents new challenges to the planning and management of the urban national park and urban world heritage in China, with boundary marking as the core issue. Boundary marking, design and management of urban national parks will seriously influence the development of the "City" and "Heritage".  This research takes the existing Chinese national parks and world heritage attached to the comprehensive cities as its study objects. On a macroscopic scale, the research uses the method of GPS , GIS and satellite imagery to make a large-scale analysis of the evolution of the boundaries. At the meso-scale it uses the parametric model as a means and monitoring as a method to control building heights etc.. At the micro scale, it uses the theory of Space Syntax and the corresponding research methods (depth-map etc.) to analyze streets of the urban public space of the boundary area. The research is aimed at solving problems of land tension, complex community issues and other problems that accompany China's rapid urbanization, by using appropriate methods to control boundaries, establishing an evaluation model and index system, and putting forward planning control guidelines with practical application.

Beijing Urban Transformations: Design Strategies for the New Normal by Dr Ir  Susanne Komossa

 

Coffee break

Policies and incentives for incorporating urban villages into social housing system by Dr Qu Lei

Urban villages as a special type of neighbourhood, were largely created in the fast urbanisation process in Chinese cities like Shenzhen in the past decades. Built by former villagers whose land was transformed into urban use, these high-density informal settlements have played essential roles in accommodating daily life of floating population. Nowadays, along with the transition from industrial to post-industrial cities, urban villages are under great pressure of large-scale redevelopment, which has generated huge debate in society. This research will explore policies and incentives for incorporating urban villages into social housing system. It includes morphological studies on urban villages (building quality, typology, property right, land ownership and mechanism of urban management) and policy studies on social housing. The aim is to facilitate collaboration among government, village collectives, and individual villagers in improving urban villages, so as to transform them into neighborhood with perceived liveability for floating population.

Asian Cities: Consanguinity by Dr Ir Gregory Bracken

Why have certain cities in Asia taken such a lead in the twenty-first century? How have they been able to make the successful segue from nodes in colonial-era networks into global players in their own right? Could it be that they have been making canny use of infrastructure inherited from the era of Western colonial expansion? Or is there something else that underpins and explains these cities’ remarkable global dominance? This paper introduces the forthcoming book Asian Cities: Colonial to Global (Amsterdam University Press, June 2015), which is based on papers from the 5th Annual IIAS-TU Delft Seminar held in Leiden in 2013. The book traces the genealogy of some of Asia’s cities’ trajectories from the colonial to the global, and it does so from a multi-disciplinary perspective: including history, geography, and cultural studies, as well as architecture and urbanism (the main lenses through which these cities and their networks are examined). The ‘consanguinity’ of the title is taken from the book’s Conclusion, which critiques Foucault’s genealogical methodology (while also taking cognisance of his ‘archaeology’) to point out its imitations in the twenty-first century. In seeking to address these limitations the book’s editor has posited the term ‘consanguinity’ to describe the multi-disciplinary approach being used by the authors in their attempts to better understand the living links that connect the cities of Asia.

Plenary Session 

Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA)

The Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) is a European Union funded research project. Part of Marie Curie Actions, this International Research Staff Exchange Scheme (IRSES) was awarded in 2011 and began in April 2012. It consists of more than 100 researchers from institutes in Europe, the United States, India, and China, all of whom are researching the Asian urban environment. More information can be found at the UKNA website: www.ukna.asia

Biographies

Gregory Bracken is an Assistant Professor of Architecture at TU Delft; he is also a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden. He founded, along with Dr Manon Osseweijer, the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) www.ukna.asia and is also one of the founding editors of Footprint journal www.footprintjournal.org. His research is concerned with the urban environment of East and Southeast Asia and recent publications include Footprint 12 ‘Future Publics: Politics and Space in East Asia’s Cities’ (co-edited with Jonathan D. Solomon); The Shanghai Alleyway House: A Vanishing Urban Vernacular (Routledge, 2013); and Aspects of Urbanization in China: Shanghai, Hong Kong, Guangzhou (editor) (University of Amsterdam Press, 2012). He is also the author and illustrator of the Walking Tour series of city guides, which includes a number of cities in Asia, and has recently published Tincture of Malice, a murder mystery set in colonial Singapore. www.gregorybracken.com

Hu Yike graduated from Tsinghua University of China and got a Ph.D. in Landscape Architecture in 2010, then went on to work in the School of Architecture,Tianjin University (TJU). Currently he is on an Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) secondment at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS), Leiden. Focused on landscape planning and design, his research directions include master plan of national parks , scenic and tourism area planning and design, and landscape architectural design. He has published more than 40 articles in academic journals, and a book entitled Diagram of Scenic and Tourist Area Planning, published by the Jiangsu Phoenix Science Press. He has also been involved in approximately 20 landscape planning and design projects in China, including the Master Plan of Temple of Heaven, protection and management plan of mount hua, Urban Design of Wuyishan city, core scenic zone design of Tian Men Mountain(Zhangjiajie) , among others.

Tom Kuipers finished the Masters in Architecture, Urbanism, and Building Sciences at Delft University of Technology with a specialization in Urbanism. Tom currently works as start-up co-ordinator at the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions (AMS). AMS is a new Amsterdam-based public-private institute – initiated by MIT, TU Delft, and Wageningen UR – where talent is educated and engineers, designers, digital engineers, and natural/social scientists jointly develop and valorise inter-disciplinary metropolitan solutions. Next to his work for AMS, Tom is the co-ordinator of the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) at TU Delft.

Lei Qu is a full-time Assistant Professor at Delft University of Technology. She works at the Chair of Spatial Planning and Strategy within the Department of Urbanism. She studied Architectural Design at Tsinghua University in China from 1994 to 1999 for her Bachelor’s degree, and later on obtained Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Urban Planning and Design at the same University by 2004. Since 2005, she worked as scientific researcher at Delft University of Technology, and was promoted as Assistant Professor since 2011. Her research interests various from Housing to Urban Transformation and Strategic Development Strategies, with special interest in comparative studies between European and Chinese cities. She teaches in Research and Design Studios and Graduation Studio of the Masters Course at the Department of Urbanism, and is daily supervisor of one PhD candidate.  

Paul Rabé is the Coordinator of the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA), based at the International Institute for Asian Studies (IIAS) in Leiden, the Netherlands. He has a Doctoral degree in Policy, Planning, and Development from the University of Southern California’s Sol Price School of Public Policy and a Master’s degree in Urban Management from Erasmus University/IHS in the Netherlands and in International Relations from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs. In addition to his responsibilities as UKNA coordinator, Dr. Rabé works as advisor on urban land, housing, governance, and poverty reduction for central governments, municipalities, donor agencies, and civil society organizations. In this capacity he works in cities in Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and the Balkans.

Gien San Tan is working for the Urban Knowledge Network Asia (UKNA) on behalf of the  International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden in the Netherlands (IIAS). She has received her masters degree in architecture from the TU Delft and has worked as an architect for a variety of architectural practices in Hong Kong such as RMJM, Leigh & Orange and Walt Disney Imagineering on retail, school and commercial projects in Asia. Since 2005 she is based in the Netherlands and has worked as an airport architect on airport projects in Asia and Europe. Beside her work for the UKNA in Leiden, Gien San works now as an architect and bureau manager in the architectural practice OSQB in Antwerp on housing, school, and industrial projects in Flanders and as an independent architect in Amsterdam.

Zhao Di is a lecturer at the Department of Landscape Architecture School of Architecture, Tianjin University, China. She received her Doctorate at School of Landscape Architecture, Beijing Forestry University. Her research interests include landscape planning and design, protection of historic gardens, plant landscape design. She hosted and participated in a number of national natural science foundation. There are few projects currently being studied: ‘The Research of Historic Intact and Restoration of Plant Landscapes in the Summer Palace’; ‘Study on sound attenuation and soundscape optimization mechanism of landscape plant community in urban park green space’.