Chinese urban design: the typomorphological approach

Abstract

The traditional Chinese city is undergoing an identity crisis. An appropriate approach, both in design and in legislation, is urgently needed to deal with this problem. Furthermore, existing methods of urban form study in China are either descriptive or loosely structured, whereas a comprehensive methodology is necessary to 'read' Chinese urban forms in a consistent way, and thus inform designers and policy-makers. The book targets these problems and offers an analytic and conceptual framework for both urban investigation and consequent design. Firstly summarising traditional urban design principles and how Chinese cities have transformed over time, it then introduces and offers a theoretic ground and scientific methodology for understanding the evolution of urban forms, initially developed in western countries. It demonstrates the theoretic model via real cases - from the city of Nanjing - and establishes a direct link between understanding of urban forms and design development.