Cooperative
 

Manifesto

Today, the Urbanism revolution is being accelerated by the advance of technologies.

The great leap forward in information technology is creating a new alternative, so how? Spatial context and the popularization of smart personal equipment is bringing broader abilities to empower individuals and involve them in a more democratic group decision making process, just to name an example. Under this trend, the innovation of information, interaction patterns endow the traditional sense of space with broader dimensions and allows more flexible iterations within.

This process is intensifying the disintegration of geopolitical borders and provides better and possibilities conditions for an effective and long term regional integration. At the same time, the ability of a virtual platform which could integrate overflow functions in physical space compression also inspires us to revisited a new pathway of harmonious coexistence between man and the natural environment, in order to achieve the vision of “Unity of Human and Nature” in the traditional Chinese philosophy.

We believe in a more inclusive and optional new paradigm of regional cooperation, based on multi-dimensional interaction of “information-space” this could be built and could allow to growth on the traditional aggregation model within, maintaining certain levels of urban competition at its core but opening new possibilities from more local and integrative conditions to happens.
 

The Team

Jie Chu is a Chinese student learning Urbanism(Master Degree) in TU Delft. He regards the urbanism as a multivariate dialectical proposition, a discussion about the past, present and future of human beings. Cities are complex entities that can be influenced by and interpreted through technology, social context and spatial interactions, and his interests in this project focus on the spatial iteration and transition of economic models brought by information technology.

Yizhao Du is a student from China major in urban and rural planning and currently studying master program of urbanism in TU Delft. His interests are focused on designing human living environment, urban sociology and regional planning. He has a deep understanding of China’s planning context and planning system,Therefore, he can combine the European regional planning method with China’s unique situation in order to achieve better planning goals.

Paulius Kliučininkas is a student from Lithuania - the Baltic States. He graduated from bachelors of Architecture The main fields of interest are related to metamodern cultural set, image of places, regional and Maritime spatial planning and architecture. The student expects to use the knowledge for the Baltic Sea Region integrated planning in the future. Paulius is currently working on the Comprehensive Lithuania territory plan.

Chingfang Wang is a Taiwanese designer with a background in landscape architecture. Her interests are focused on biophilic planning and design, and environmental psychology. She is fascinated by the potential of developing fundamental strategies through understanding the environmental impact on human behaviour and vice versa. She loves being in the ocean and under the sun.
 

The Quest

I think that, as life is action and passion, we should share the passion and action of our time at peril of being judged not to have lived at all.

“We need to supply land at the right location to support continuous growth of the pillar and new industries amidst keen competition in the global and regional economies. We also need to boost a knowledge and technology-based and high value-added economy with innovation and talents as the key drivers of growth.”

(Hong Kong 2030+)

Infrastructure connectivity. Data Source: Map data copyrighted NBSC contributors. Made by authors.

“As a new scale of urban agglomeration, city-regions—rather than nation-states or cities—have increasingly become the central scale for state regulation, capital accumulation, and political restructuring.”

(Scott, 2001)

Peri-urban and urban areas in the GBA. Made by authors.

“Post-reform China is characterized by a strong wave of neoliberalism, which has been attributed to the retreat or decentralization of the former totalitarian state and, for example, the rise of Chinese local corporatist states; the increasingly entrepreneurial, competitive, and progrowth local governments or growth coalitions; and the absence of central government in local economic governance”
(Li, 2014)
 

The Challenges

What spatial ecological structures and economical influences have formed the peri-urban areas in the GBA?

What are the local endogenous assets of the peri-urban areas within the GBA?

How can endogenous assets encourage a strategy for the GBA towards an sustainable, integrative and polycentric region?
 

The Game

I think that, as life is action and passion, we should share the passion and action of our time at peril of being judged not to have lived at all.

General Context

In the first step of the morphology game, we use 5x5 km2 grid to categorize the GBA into blocks that represents the land use of the region.

We then start to analyzed the consisting percentage of each elements and the spatial structure within, determining new development typologies and more diverse types of agglomerations.

Sites in predict and proposal

After defining the base map for the mega block game board, we started to categorized the typologies of cities determining four categories.

The city model consists of: the center city model and the secondary city model; the suburb-city model consists of:  the in-between and the marginal city model.

I think that, as life is action and passion, we should share the passion and action of our time at peril of being judged not to have lived at all.

I think that, as life is action and passion, we should share the passion and action of our time at peril of being judged not to have lived at all.

Prediction-Proposal Game Board

In the proposed new economy model, there are five principles that we introduced to achieve the previously designed goal of cooperative development. In which, we translated the principles into strategic approaches that could be implemented in the future Greater Bay Area. Based on those approaches we build a vision map. The map shows that the natural elements are better integrated (functionally and spatially) in the built area, and the development then could be better distributed.

From the pie chart of the map, we can see that the natural landscape could be increased, and more residential areas are introduced to counteract the concentration at the Metropolization development model in the future.
 

The Vision

The principle of our project is to build a new model of metropolitan planning based on the transition of the economic model and have the potential to be a new developing paradigm, which redefines the relationship between cities and the geopolitical boundaries. In order to contribute to human equal, global co-prosperous and sustainable development.

In 2035, The Greater Bay Area will be built into a global metropolitan bay area which is guided by regional cooperation and based on information technology infrastructure to achieve balanced development in the three dimensions of economy, environment and society.

I think that, as life is action and passion, we should share the passion and action of our time at peril of being judged not to have lived at all.

There were chosen 4 typical areas representing each morphotype of city models, in order to analyse and propose more detailed scenarios and visions.
Site No 1. - Hong Kong representing city-region which is a worlwide influencer.
Site No 2. - Xiangzhou representing secondary city model. Such an urbanisation model give an important role to the cities-outsiders.
Site No 3. - Territory including Shenzhen and New territories represents a city which is in-between. This encompass the specificity of GBA and urban scenarios which transgress traditional boundaries.
Site No 4. - Territory uniting Huiyang district and Pingshan represents a marginal city. The industrial transformations and integrated planning might help to identify some territories as cities.

Elements and Strategies

Strategic actions

Site 1 - Centre City Model

The first city we are looking at is the centre city model. This model represents the cities that are functioned as the main urbanized center in the region. They are also positioned as the heart of the commercial activities and accommodates the most of the population. Centre cities are mostly equiped with better infrastructure. Here we take Honkong as the testing site.

The final strategy map depicts the overlapped thematic strategy maps. One of the most important features is coexistence and cross of several development corridors. The green protected areas and residential stripes interwoven each other creating spatial symbiosis. This is closely related to the results of the block game. The strategy insist to develop additional diverse centers and connect them into the system open for future changes. The centers includes residential districts, agricultural innovation territories and former industrial sites. These decisions should upgrade the current compact centre cities. The main strategy plan can be divided into 3 theme based strategies highlighting the priority scenarios.
 

Site 2 - Secondary City Model

The next model we will be looking at is the secondary city. We took Zhuhai as a testing site to apply our principles. In this type of cities, the commercial function is less but they equipped more capacity to accommodate the growing population with good infrastructural connection to the centre cities. Zhuhai is a place where recreational activities play a strong role in its economy.

The integrated strategy plan for the meso-scale emphases the continuity of structures and diversity of programs inside the blocks or districts. The continuity ensures the integration of the different systems, the connectivity among them, ability to reach them and identification of a city. Territories of transformation would create more diversity and vitality inside them. The mono-functional industrial areas will become the main city narrative and facilitator of economic and industrial transition.

Site 3 - In-Between City Model

Moving on to the third testing site, the in-between city which is under the suburb-city model. This type of cities locate between centre cities. In this case, we choose a place between Honkong and Shenzhen to test the different hypotheses. The in-between cities usually consist more residential blocks and natural landscape where it has better quality of living environment.

The integrated In-between city will have a clear urban and industrial structure. The city will benefit from spread urbanization. Yet, the urban nodes will include very intensive transportation hubs and urban centers. The green territories will take middle place surrounded by nature based neighborhoods. The highly integrated territories outside the urban areas will have advanced agricultural function. All in all, the duality and combination of models in the typology of city will include different social groups. The floating population or scientist or IT inventors fear conditions to live in such an in-between city.
 

Site 4 -Marginal City Model
The last one of the testing sites is the marginal city model where it is located in the suburb area between the centre city and the natural landscape. In this case, we took a place on northeastern of Shenzhen city as the testing site. In this site we can see that there are mostly industrial area with some residential area around and the percentage of natural landscape is high as well.

The overall plan of the marginal city would emphasis the natural and green structure in the city. The natural territories will let to identify the residential territories which should be surrounded by the natural and recreational territories. Additionally, it is difficult to reach without taking industrial buildings and plots and regenerating them into the advanced system. The former industrial territories will be facilitators in such cities. The transformations will foster the transition from traditional industries to alternative, agro-based production and living.
 

From Local Sharing to Regional Collaboration

In 2035, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area will become a highly integrated world-class bay area with inter-city cooperation as the main model and infoemative infrastructure as the catalyst, which will achieve multi-dimensional balanced development and sustainable development. Economically, the relationship between cities in the Greater Bay Area has gradually changed from competition to cooperation, promoting the upgrading and transformation of industry and agriculture, to develop service economy, GDP is no longer the only development goal. Societally, the high accessible urban transportation system and the fully covered network infrastructure will promote a more balanced distribu- tion of public resources and promote social stability. Due to the reasonable distribution of living and working spaces, the situation of f -loating population will be largely improved. Environmentally, the development of the Greater Bay Area will respect the natural environment and ecology, protect green spaces and water.

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