Master of Urban Design Thesis-Commoning the City by ZHANG CHI

COMMONING THE CITY MASTER OF URBAN DESIGN THESIS BOOK Master of Urban Design 2019 Carnegie Mellon University

Hutong Plugin

Re-nagotiation of Common Space in Traditional Chinese Courtyard

Produce: Chi Zhang Advisor: Jonathan Kline Stefan Gruber

ABSTRACT Beijing hutong courtyard is a typical Chinese historic residential morpholog y, which usually manifests as one courtyard in the middle and four houses surrounded. Siheyuan (courtyard housing) was originally single-family housing type when they are built in Beijing as a general pattern in Yuan Dynasty. During the war in 20th century, many house owners sold their houses and moved out of hutong. Some Beijing courtyards starts to become multifamily housing. The socialist transformation in 50s required the house owners to declare their property, and government reclaim the ownerless or “illegal” property as public-owned. In 60s and 70s government announced that any individual who owns more than one whole courtyard should be ‘’socialized’’ and donate their property to government. Starts from now singlefamily households gradually disappeared, and Siheyuan become Dazayuan (mussy and crowded courtyard). In 1980s government start to return the “socialized housing property” back to the previous owners, but the government still kept the lease contracts to make sure the tenants moved in these years won’t be homeless. Up to now the property of courtyard houses has seen a change from private to public, then to partially private. The demographic and ownership became complicated.

some households built their own additional buildings on the courtyard as kitchens or storerooms, which is illegally occupancy of common property. Changing demographics of floating population have destabilized the negotiation of common courtyard spaces and make the illegal occupancy issue worse. The site is a residential hutong inside the second ring of Beijing. According to the historical building preservation law, this neighborhood won’t be demolished for new development in at least 20 years. So how to improve the living condition of the residents who live here becomes a question we need to ask.

The hypothesis is forming a new communitybased organization, which ideally composed of representatives from government, communit y committee, urban designers, long-term residents and short-term renters to negotiate with the households about the courtyard illegal construction issue. The goal is to demolish the attached buildings and reclaim the illegally occupied courtyard space. The organization will be founded by Housing Management Department and Historical Preser vation Department of the government, and resort to plugin boxes which create new shared facilities, including bathroom, kitchen and laundry, in collectively owned courtyards. Through The household type of Beijing hutong courtyard this way multiple privately built facilities are changed has seen a transformation from single family to multi- to one common facility construction, natural sunlight family in the last century due to historical reasons. The condition is improved, more outdoor space is liberated. courtyard outdoor space has transformed from private This organizational and spatial model can be reflected property of one family to common property for all the back to the government as a mechanism and can be households. With the shrink of average living area, broadcasted to other hutongs in Beijing.

Table of Contents I. General Introduction 1. Beijing Siheyuan 2. Hutong 3. Site

21-32 III. Commoning Proposal 1. Case Study 2. Social & Structural proposal 3. Spatial proposal

45-61 V. Conclusion and Reflection

66-73

06-20

II. Issue Statement 1. Transfer from single-family housing to multi-family housing 2. Existing condition 3. Demographic changing

33-44 IV. Plugin Design Proposal 1. Three modules of plugin 2. Flexibility & design details 3. Impact

62-65 V. Appendix 1. Exhibition 2. Bibliography 3. Special Thanks

I. General Introduction

1. Beijing Siheyuan 2. Hutong 3. Site

With the rapidly increasing urban population and massive urban construction, China has seen a great change in urban context in the last few decades. Beijing, the capital city and one of the most rapidly developing city, has a lot of new constructions being built in the last 20 years, including some famous landmarks: Rem Koolhas' CCTV building; Herzog and de Meuron's National Stadium; and Paul Andreu's National Theatre. Figure 1-1 CCTV building. From The Skyscraper Center.

The massive constructions significantly changed Beijingâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban pattern, and has a great impact on urban heritage.

Figure 1-2 National Stadium. From Wikipedia.

Figure 1-3. National Theatre. From Pinterest.

Figure 1-4 A view of Beijing Skyline. By Amanda Briney at ThoughtGo.

Figure 1-5. Palace Museum. From ChinaTour.

As one of the country that has the longest The deepest problems of modern life derive from history, the urban heritage in China is abundant, the claim of the individual to preserve the autonomy especially in some of the historic cities. Beijing, which and individuality of his existence in the face of is built in 13th century and has been the capital of overwhelming social forces, of historical heritage, of three dynasties, has countless architectural heritage, external culture, and of the technique of life. such as Palace Museum, the temple of heaven, Tiananmen Square and so on, and unique urban fabric -George Simmel of hutong and Beijing courtyard.

Figure 1-6. Temple of Heaven. From dkfindout.

At present, the pre-eminent problem in our countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s urban construction is that some city leaders only see the economic values of natural and cultural relics but know little about the historical, scientific, cultural and artistic value of them. They seek only economic benefits and development while neglecting protection, so damage to natural and cultural relics are occurring frequently. - Wen Jiabao

Courtyard

Figure 1-7. Beijing Courtyard Housing Diagram 1.

North House

East House

Entrance

West House Reversely-set House Figure 1-8. Beijing Courtyard Housing Diagram 2.

The unique urban residential morphology, outside disturbing. It has been the core concept of Beijing courtyard and hutong is an iconic urban Chinese lifestyle that shows family life in the courtyard pattern in Beijing. It has a long history and great is so important to Chinese people. impact on Chinese residential morphology and Chinese culture. It is designed with four houses and a courtyard in the middle, sometimes has more than one â&#x20AC;&#x153;entriesâ&#x20AC;?, which means more than one courtyards for a single family. The philosophy of design it like this is to share tranquility and happiness in a family, without 08

Figure 1-9. A Residential Hutong.

“Hutong” is originally Mongolian word, which means “water well”. When the Mongolians building their dynasty and set up the capital in Beijing in 13th century, this unique urban fabric became the basic urban pattern in Beijing and lasted more than six centuries. It means the narrow alleys that connect the courtyard housings, and also has a meaning of the historic neighborhood pattern that consist of alleys and courtyards. 09

Figure 1-10. A hutong neighborhood.

Figure 1-11. Hutong pattern VS new residential buildings. From AirPano.

Before 2005 a lot of hutongs and courtyards are demolished and replaced by massive, high density commodity housing or office buildings inside the second ring of Beijing. At some time point the government realized their mistake to demolish the urban heritage and change the policy. In the historic preser vation planning for Beijing in 2005, the government abandoned the demolition of Beijing courtyard housing inside the second ring of Beijing. Figure 1-12. Demolished hutong. By Sean Gallagher.

Beijing city government started to re-evaluate hutong historic districts as precious urban heritage. It has been a serious issue of which one is more important, the preservation of building environment or the preservation of intangible values, such as residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; life style and neighborhood relationships. In some of the famous hutongs, government or real estate developers purchase the property of the courtyard housings, relocate local residents, save but commercialize the courtyard housings. This has been considered a realistic approach to preserve historic districts. The historic buildings then can generate new economic values. But some scholars are critical about the commercialization and relocation. They think the life of local residents in the historic district is as important as the building environments. If the historic district doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have local people and heritage lifestyle, it is no longer a historic heritage somehow.

Figure 1-13. Commercialized hutong. From GettyImages

So the questions become: How do we preserve the building environments as well as the traditional way to live in hutong? How to improve local residentsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; living condition to make their life better? How to help the government make good decision on hutong historic district preservation?

Beijing CHINA

Xisi North Neighborhood

The site I choose is Xisi North Sixth Hutong, which is located inside the inner city of Beijing, also inside the second ring of preservation. This means in recent decades this hutong community can not be demolished by historic preservation law, but limited renovation is permitted. Xisi North Sixth Hutong's length is 495 meters. It has existed since Yuan Dynasty (13th Century). It is called Yanshanwei Hutong in Ming Dynasty(16th Century) and Weier Hutong in Qing Dynasty(18th Century). In this hutong once lived a lot of famous people, such as Chen Banding, the artist, Xu Ying and Peng Zigang, a famous writter couple, and so on.

Inner City

Xisi North Sixth Hutong is one of the remained famous hutong that hasn't been commercialized. Most of the courtyards are still remained residential. There are 895 families and 2329 people live in this community. The courtyards are most Ming Dynasty style and Qing Dynasty style. The 23rd of this hutong is a city level historic preservation courtyard. There are also some other well preserved courtyards, such as 9th, 16th and 29th.

Site Xisi North Neighborhood

II. Issue Statement 1. Transfer from single-family housing to multi-family housing 2. Existing condition of illegal construction and its disadvantage 3. Demographic changing

Courtyard Property Change From Private to Common

Sell

Heritage Government Distribution

Sell

Figure 2-1. Courtyard property change.

Beijing courtyard housing was originally single family housing type when they are built in Beijing as a general pattern in Yuan Dynasty. During the war in 20th century, many house owners sold their houses and moved out of hutong. Some Beijing courtyards starts to become multi-family housing. The socialist transformation in 50s required the house owners to declare their property, and government reclaim the ownerless as public-owned. In 60s and 70s government announced that any individual who owns more than one whole courtyard or 250m2 housing should be "socialized" and donate their property to government. Starts from now single-family households gradually disappeared. In 1980s government start to return the

â&#x20AC;&#x153;socialized housing propertyâ&#x20AC;? back to the previous owners, but the government still kept the lease contracts to make sure the tenants moved in these years wonâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t be homeless. Up to now the property of courtyard houses has seen a change from private to public, then become blurry. During this transformation, the courtyard outdoor space property changes from private to common, legally it a common property of all those who own the houses around the courtyard.

Previous Amenities Are Transfered to More Bedrooms

Families build Their Own Kitchens on the Courtyard Space

Basic Living Space (Bedroom)

Amenities Space (Bathroom, Kitchen, Storage)

Figure 2-2. Courtyard space change.

The space has also changed a lot. Because of the increase of resident density, almost all the rooms of the houses are turned into bedrooms, while they used to be kitchens, bathrooms, storerooms and so on. But people can not survive with out these amenities, so they start to build their own additional buildings inside the courtyard space. All the families attempts to build their own amenities in the common courtyard, the result is the courtyard is fully occupied by these additional buildings.

Self-built Kitchen Self-built Kitchen Self-built Kitchen Self-built Storeroom

We donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have space to play! The whole courtyard is occupied by kitchens and storerooms of different families!

Figure 2-3. Courtyard attached buildings.

Because of the complex historical property transformation and the blurry property situation, Beijing couryard has been a disaster area in housing property lawsuits. Usually the courtyard is regarded as collective asset for all the families, and divided by the housing area each family have. For instance, if you own 1/4 of the housing area of the whole couryard housing, then you also own 1/4 of the outdoor courtyard space. But since there is usually not a clear identification of which part of the couryard belongs to which family, so it becomes sanctioned by usage that the courtyard ourt door space is usually carved up and privately occupied by the house owners in this courtyard housing.

Every family built their own additional buildings in the courtyard... We should do this too! Otherwise we donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have kitchen to use!

Then this become a typical commoning dilemma: the resource is very limited, if everyone builds their own individual buildings, then everyone loses. But if they choose to share the resources, in this case most likely the ourdoor space, then they can have not only more outdoor space in the courtyard, but also better amenities than they used to have.

Self-built Kitchen

Figure 2-3. A courtyard with attached self-built buildings in poor condition.

Figure 2-4. A courtyard with attached self-built buildings in poor condition.

And because they are self-built houses and most of the residents who live here are not wealthy, these building are really in bad condition. Besides, they block almost all natural light and natural wind, which makes the original buildings dark and wet. Also they donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t meet the need of fire control. This is not individual case, but already become a pattern in the historical neighborhood.

Figure 2-5. Floating population in spring festival travel.

The changing demographics also make the negotiation of common space become more difficult. The immigrants from other small cities or villages come to Beijing to work, and we call them floating population.

The floating population like the low rent in hutong, and a lot of them choose to live here. Beijing local residents regards them as uneducated and poor. So the discrimination and conflict makes the communication difficult.

The ratio of floating population in Beijing is growing fast, and most of them are at the age of labor force, and they usually work as blue collar workers or vendors.

Figure 2-6. Floating population ratio

Figure 2-7. Floating population on Tiananmen Square

III. Commoning Proposal

1. Case Study 1. Social & Structural proposal 2. Spatial proposal

Figure 3-1. WiLMa19. From An Atlas of Commons.

WILMA19 Planned by: ARGE Clemens Krug Architekten and Bernhard Hummel Architekt (Oliver Clemens, Anna Heilgemeir, Bernhard Hummel, Emma Williams) Commissioned by: WiLMa GmbH with MietshĂ¤user Syndikat Berlin, Germany, 2014 WiLMa19 is a collective housing project in Germany as a part of the project MietshĂ¤user Syndikat (Tenement Syndicate), which provides self-organized living models. In the building each floor is divided into flats that supports multiple families living and working. Each floor and flat can decide how to use their space. The doors are flexible to be opened and closed to create different scenarios. In each flat people share kitchen, office and living room, which are in the middel of the units. They also create their own standard and rule to share the space and amenities.

Figure 3-2. Millvale Community Library.

MILLVALE COMMUNITY LIBRARY Millvale,Pennsylvania, 2013 Millvale community library is a project that supported by the non-profit organization with the same name. It began with a idea of a local middle school teacher, Brian Wolovich, who saw the solidarity of the community in recovering from the flooding, and wanted to use the solidarity in building something good for the community. He first tried to build a small librar y in community center of Millvale as an experiment, which turned out to be very successful. After he got enough funds, he started the non-profit organization as well as the construction work of the new community library. During the construction, he received labor contribution and knowledge contribution from the local residents. They are the future users of the library and they were willing to contribute to this work that will benifit them later. With the help of the residents, the library became true without spend a great amount of money.

Neighborhood Committee Government Representative Urban Designer

Long-term Residents

Community Based Organization Short-term Renters

Figure 3-3. Phase1.

PHASE 1: ORGANIZATION ESTABLISHMENT My hypothesis is firstly, forming a new community-based organization, which ideally composed of representatives from government, community committee, urban designers, long-term residents and floating population renters. The floating population is very important and should be engaged in this progress. From the talk to

the neighborhood committee members, the floating population are usually not willing to engaged in community issues, because they spend most of their energy and time on their work every day. So in this case I propose the engagement of the floating population can be considered as community work time, in return they can get material reward such as rice and oil from the community committee.

Better Amenities

Authorization

Government Housing Management Department

Illegal Building Demolition Permission

Solving Illegal Construction Problem

Long-term Residents

Better Amenities

Community Based Organization

Illegal Building Demolition Supports Short-term Renters

Figure 3-4. Phase2.

PHASE 2: SPACE RE-NEGOTIATION Second, the community-based organization will negotiate with the households about the courtyard illegal construction issue. The house owners will allow the organization to demolish all the illegal constructions, in return they can get better amenities in the future. The housing management department will authorize the organization to do so, because the illegal construction is also a big problem they want to

solve. The goal is to demolish the attached buildings and reclaim the illegally occupied courtyard space. The courtyard space is still collectively owned by all the families, but the community-based organization has the authority from the Government Housing Management Department to demolish the attached buildings after nagotiation with the house owners.

Figure 3-5. Illegally occupied space.

Reputation and Design Opportunity

Grant

Government Historical Preservation Depart-

Free Design Schemes

Preserved Historical Pattern

Free to Use Better Amenities

Grant

Better Living

Architecture Design Firm

Community Based Organization Labor Contribution

Condition Government Housing Management Depart-

Residents

Figure 3-6. Phase3.

PHASE 3: NEW AMENITIES CONSTRUCTION The third step is building new amenities in courtyards. The money will come from government historical presercvation department and housing management department. These two department has a very big amount of money as grant from central government every year to improve the living condition in hutong and preserve hutong pattern. The organization can work with the government and use this grant to

build new amenities. And also I know there are some there are some architecture firms that are very willing to invest their time in the renovation projects in hutong for free, in order to use this as a advertisement of their company. Here we can use what I learnt from Millvale community library, where they form a non-profit organization and build a community library with the labor contribution from a lot of the future users.

Figure 3-7. Residents work on courtyard amenities.

Feedback and Experience

Residents Community Based Organization Amenities Maintainance

Model and Mechanism

Broadcast

Other CBO

Other CBO Figure 3-8. Phase4.

PHASE 4: FEEDBACK & BROADCAST In phase four, the amenities will be maintained by users, and the organization should reflect all the experience back to the government. If it is successful then the government can broadcast it to other hutong communities.

Building Common Amenities

Demolish Illegal Constructions Family 1: Bathroom Family 1:

Common Bathroom Common Kitchen Common Laundry Room & Storeroom

Family 3: Storeroom Family 3: Kitchen Family 3: Bathroom

Family 2: Kitchen Family 2: Bathroom

Family 4: Storeroom Family 4: Kitchen

Figure 3-8. Spatial Strategy.

In term of spatial commoning proposal, The current situation has a very low spatial efficiency. It doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t make sense to have multiple kitchens, bathrooms and other amenities in such a small space if they can share these. The proposal is that, after negotiate with house owners and demolish the individual facilities, to build new shared facilities in the middle of the courtyard as plugins. which also can help with the daylight problem.

IV. Plugin Design Proposal 1. Three modules of plugin 2. Flexibility & design details 3. Impact

Consider of the basic living demand and the current facitlitie situation in the courtyards, I have three plugin boxes designed, first is kitchen, which can accommodate four people to cook at the same time. Second is bathroom, with two toilets, two showers and a hand washing sink, and laundry, which has three washing machines and some storage space. By assemble these three basic plugin boxes together we can create different scenarios for different user families

Figure 4-1. Kitchen.

Figure 4-2. Laundry.

Figure 4-3. Bathroom.

F lexibility is a significant requirement, because the space is very constrained and the users can be very different. In the design there are some details that can help these plugins more flexible in term of saving space and provide more functions. First is the wall mounted desks and chairs on outside walls, that can be put down.to use or put up to save space.

Figure 4-4. Wall-mounted furniture.

The staircase to the roof can also be used as storage. There are benches on the roof so residents can use the stairs to go to the roof and basking on it. The staircases are also boxes that can contain books, flower pots or other items.

Figure 4-5. Staircase.

The door of the kitchen can be fully pull up to provide sunlight shelter in summer, and there is a spinning table on the door so people can spin it to play table tennis.

Figure 4-6. Kitchen door.

A part of the floor can be lift up as working table in the kitchen, or lower, and dinning table while people can put their leg into the sunken part and sit on the floor to have dinner on the table.

Figure 4-7. Kitchen table.

The doors of the laundry also can be pull up and people hang clothes out. Chinese people donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t use dr yer much, they prefer to hang it out for dr ying. The door can also be used as sunlight shelter.

Figure 4-8. Laundry door.

In the Bathroom, the water from the sink which is attached to outside wall will be recycled and used as toilet flushing. The stormwater gathered from the room can also be gathered and recycled.

Figure 4-8. Bathroom.

So how can this be applied as an urban pattern? What is the impact in a urban scale? I designed four ways to assemble the plugin boxes together in the courtyard for four different courtyard situation. First is a normal, rectangular courtyard space, and I put bathroom, kitchen, and laundry here. Second is an irregular shape courtyard in the neighborhood with only three houses surrounded, so the laundry can be attached in this direction. Third is a shorter square-shape case, so this one doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have laundry. Fourth is a square -shape case with doesn't include bathroom. I would say the configuration can be a democratic rocess, let the residents in the courtyard make decision of what they want to have in the courtyard, and how do they use it in a collective way. Here I am referring to the case study of Wilma 19, where people share the common space on each floor and make the rules of how do they use it, and they can open and close the door to change the space.

Figure 4-9. Scenario1.

Figure 4-10. Scenario2.

Figure 4-11. Scenario3.

Figure 4-12. Scenario4.

The idea is not only provide better amenities and solve the daylight problem, but also bring back the idea of courtyard outdoor space is the center of Chinese family life. I hope the plugins can bring people to live not only in there room, but also in the courtyard, in a collective way. The plugins can be assembled and fit into most of the situations in the neighborhood. I hope it can change the urban pattern for hutong historic district from the previous messy situation, and improve peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s living quality by introduce this communing approach.

V. Conclusion and Reflection

CONCLUSION I want to draw the conclusion on three aspects. First is the efficiency of the proposal and the impact. However, the plugins will definitely improve the daylight situation and provide more outdoor space with better quality. I did some small scale ourdoor space design and experiment in this project, and I really like the sense of space in the final render. On this aspect, this approach of commoning the space and facilities seems work. The second aspect is the organizational part. In the organization I am proposing, the government plays a very important role. I think if this is not in China, where the government hold so many resources and so powerful in legal status, this project may not seem possible. I always consider the financial part of the commoning proposal the most interesting part. Unfortunately in my commoning proposal their is not a genius idea of how to get the money and have everyone benifit from it. In my proposal most of the fund comes from government departments. But in China I think one challenging problem is: how to help the government spend their money on the best place, in an appropriate way? So my arguement is: since the government have fund and want to spent it on historic preservation, the organization is founded to help them to spend the money wisely.

The third aspect is how to get residents' support on the project and if they don't, what is the alternative scheme. In my commoning phases I try to include all the stakeholders in the negotiation, which I hope can help them to impress their opinions and help the designers make better decisions that can be accepted by more people. In the plugin design phase I try to design interesting details to make the project seems more convincing, and produce VR renderings, as a tool to do the communication with the audience. In conclusion, if this is a real project, what I do is I try to make the project as much convincing as possible in order to get the support from residents. However, people are usually afraid of change. I can imagine people are not willing to do all of these since they can still live in their self-built buildings, although the living condition is bad, but it is familiar for them. The reason I haven't prepared a alternative scheme for this is because I consider this more as a project with government intervention than a total bottom-up project, which means the government has the power to push this project to be implemented. The government has enough reasons to do it: preserve historic courtyard pattern, prevent property controversy, meet fire control need, improve low-income people's living condition and so on. But the designers have to give the residents a feedback channel to reflect on the design and fix their mistakes.

REFLECTION In the reflection part I want to point out what I think the evaluation system to evaluate the impact after the experiment period? I haven't done well and record the astray exploration. First is the documentation problem. It was too late when I found I can't get any documentation besides the aerial image. Then I try to build the model of the neighborhood from aerial image and blurry map. If I know this before I can either change the site or go to the site to do a documentation. I haven't done enough for the plugin component design. In the end there are only three plugin components, in my plan I should designe more components and more fuctions, such as fitness, reading room, chess game room and so on, to provide more options to the residents to make this project more convincing. Also, in my subconsciousness I considered the plugin boxes as prefabricated, plastic material components, but I have not seriously weighed what should the plugin be in terms of material, construction method and so on.

In last semester, I was focusing on the street space in hutong district, the actual "hutong" space. I did some hand sketch on how to use the street space for community activities. I didn't like that idea, because first it is not really solving any problems, neither provide living space or facilities, which are the most required resources in the crowded historic community. Second is that the street space is already "public", which belong to everybody, so it is less meaningful to think it in a commoning approach, which usually alongside the change of ownership and access. Third, the hutong is really too narrow to do any meaningful design, with the respect of traffic and on-street parking demand. So at the start of this semester I changed my focus to the courtyard space. I consider this as a good transform.

In my organizational commoning proposal I over-simplified the problem. I could have provide more details, such as how much grant does the government plan to spend on hutong historic preservation every year, and is this money enough to build the plugins? Is there any material reward for those who volunteer to help in order to encourage them? How to build

Figure 5-1. On street space 1.

Figure 5-2. On street space 2.

Figure 5-3. On street space 3.

V. Appendix

1. Exhibition 2. Bibliography 3. Special Thanks

View 360 panoramas at: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1wr5b05YQGNob AdJG4AQLeqQxQYvcFEx3 Make sure you have a VR headset!

BIBLIOGRAPHY [1] Heath, Tim and Tang, Yue. Beijing’s hutong and in the vanishing backstreets of a city transformed. Reference and Research Book News. 2008. siheyuan: conservation of an urban identity. 2010. [2] Li, Zhang. Strangers in the city : reconfigurations [9] Conservation Planning of Historical and Cultural of space, power, and social networks within China's City of Beijing. Beijing Municipal City Planning Commission (2012b). Yan Shan Publishing House, floating population. 2016. Beijing, China. 2012. [3] Hiller, Christian; Gruber, Stefan.An atlas of commoning : places of collective production. Institut [10] Wang, Yi. A Century of Change Beijing's Urban Structure in the 20th Century. Cham:Springer für Auslandsbeziehungen. 2018. International Publishing : Imprint: Springer. 2016 [4] Wu, Liangyong. Rehabilitating the old city of Beijing a project in the Ju'er Hutong neighbourhood. Vancouver : UBC Press. 1999. [5] Wang, Fang ; Liu, Jing ; Pan, Bing ; Zhao, Luyin ; Zhang, Min. Stuck between the historic and modern China: A case study of children’s space in a hutong community. Journal of Environmental Psychology. 2012. [6] Guo, Qian ; Liu, Yuan Ping. Study on Beijing’s Hutong and Siheyuan: Renovation and Development. Advanced Materials Research, 2015. [7] Haydn, Florian. Temporary urban spaces : concepts for the use of city spaces. Basel; Birkhäuser, 2006. [8] Meyer, Michael. The last days of old Beijing: life

SPECIAL THANKS To my parents, Zhang Yongqing and Wang Cuizhi. To my advisors, Jonathan Kline and Stefan Gruber. To my collegues in MUD class of 2019. I can never reach here without your support and encouragement.