Realisation of the vertical village: an alternative housing strategy for Shenzhen

Abstract

As pressuring marketing and economic forces continued to proceed on China‘s rapid urbanisation, a massive “Block Attack” was brought into the housing development. The city of Shenzhen is currently undergoing urban transformation from a small fishing village into an instant man-made city. By 2015, Shenzhen is given the task of accommodating 800,000 people with the construction of 240,000 units1. Being overwhelmed by both the incoming population, the housing development resulted to be undefined products of mass construction, directly imitating large-scaled, rigid slabs from developed urban centers. These mono-functional blocks remained routine, failing to adapt to the shifting domestic structure, as well as their adherence to modern paradigms. Similar to other Asian cities, the constant shortages in land accelerated the demolitions of old existing buildings, as the process in Shenzhen continued to destroy the underlining urban fabric. Being one of Shenzhen’s most characterized housing typologies, the indigenous, light-scaled urban villages were largely scrapped away. At the same time, these culturally rich, interconnected housing which provided endless opportunities for a spatially and socially intimate community is gradually disappearing. How can a new housing strategy rebalance the rising effect of “Block Attack”, to recapture the valuable elements in urban village that are formed by the relationship between residents and architecture? How does the proposal inspire Shenzhen’s housing program from falling into yet another by-product of rapid urbanization? Inspired by the competition of “1 Unit, 100 Families, 10000 Residents” held during the 2011 Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale, this thesis sets up derived design objective, in reference to restoring “Villageness” to nowadays housing. It then addresses a hypothesis from the theoretical framework of “Vertical Village” by MVRDV, which aimed to respond to the contemporary housing desires, and to reconnect the context with the residents. Such a housing attempt aimed to produce an alternative strategy by learning from the traditional urban village and extracting the key elements. The five key qualities from the “Urban Community Wheel” proposed by MVRDV are investigated and explored to creating an intimate, multi-functional community for social housing. Under a dense environment, the habitat aimed to reflect both community and individuality, and continuously be enhanced by human activities and lifestyles. The goal of the thesis is to produce a housing prototype that improves overall living qualities and revitalizes the urban environment in Shenzhen through establishing different culture to each individual habitat.