Kai Gu

Comparing Traditional Urban Form in China and Europe: A Fringe-Belt Approach

Urban growth and transformation across the world are presenting great challenges for the comprehension and management of urban landscape change. Comparative urban morphology makes it possible to identify urban forms common to different geographical regions, while helping to distinguish unique historical characteristics and developments important for towns and cities in the hunt for place identity and prestige. The fringe-belt concept provides a frame of reference for depicting, explaining, and comparing the physical structure and historical development of urban landscapes. The walled cities of Pingyao, China and Como, Italy possess well-preserved historical urban environments that reflect the urban development traditions of their respective cultures. Newly available cartographic evidence and field work reveal critical differences between the embedded fringe belts of the two cities resulting from different historico-geographical dynamics. Pingyaos single composite fringe belt and Comos three distinct belts challenge current understanding of urban structural processes and argue for more focused urban landscape management.

Fringe Belts and Socioeconomic Change in China

The fringe-belt concept, though much studied by urban morphologists in the West, has been largely uninvestigated in the markedly different cultural environments of Eastern Asia. After an outline of the concept and considerations relating to its investigation in China, a fringe-belt study is carried out in the Chinese city of Pingyao. Comparisons are made with the findings of previous fringe-belt studies. The major fringe belt that has developed in Pingyao has features characteristic of fringe belts in the West but others that reflect a succession of different policies by authoritarian Chinese governments in the course of the twentieth century. The need for thorough morphological investigations as a basis for sound conservation planning is highlighted.

The Typological Process and the Morphological Period: A Cross-Cultural Assessment

The concepts ‘typological process’ and ‘morphological period’ have received surprisingly little empirical substantiation despite their familiarity to many urban morphologists. They are examined here in two contrasting cultural areas—England and the Shanghai area, China—over the period from the mid-19th century to the late-20th century. Sequences of ordinary residential building types are recognized in the two areas: for example, historical series of terraced house types in England and historical variations on the lilong development unit in the Shanghai area. Periods characterized by different types and connections between those types are identified. The areas are different in both their building types and their periodizations but commonalities in their processes of change, including those related to the spread of Western fashions, are found. The difficulty of uncovering the mechanism of the typological process whereby one form type is succeeded by another reflects major problems of assembling the requisite data. Many more comparative studies, including between contrasting cultural areas, are needed.

Urban fringe belts: evidence from China

Research on the fringe-belt concept has grown significantly in the past decade. This is particularly evident in parts of the world in which interest in urban morphology has been slight until recently. The main emphasis continues to be the light that this concept can shed on the historico-geographical grain of urban areas. This paper reports a morphogenetic investigation into fringe belts that gives particular attention to the fixation lines associated with Chinese city walls. Discussion is concentrated on a fringe belt related to one of the world’s longest and most massive city walls, that of Nanjing. The formation, consolidation and, in places, alienation of the Ming fringe belt of Nanjing has been influenced by natural and artificial fixation lines and the political economy of an authoritarian society. Understanding the changing spatial structure of fringe-belt landscapes has implications for the management of urban form in ways sensitive to its historico-geographical development.

Exploring Urban Morphology as Urban Design Pedagogy

Despite the recent resurgence of research on the use of geographical urban morphology in planning and urban design practice, the exploration of urban morphology for pedagogical purposes in urban design has been slow to develop. The application of urban morphology to an urban design studio focuses on the urban waterfront redevelopment in Auckland, New Zealand. A field-based active learning process supports the characterization of the waterfront landscape forms and the assessment of their socio-economic consequences. Urban design guidelines and conceptual development plans prepared by students aim to contribute to maintaining and improving urban waterfront history, cultural tradition and identity.