Abstract:
During China’s urbanization process, Villages in the City (VICs) have had a special existence in urban space but however there issues which are becoming more prominent as a result from China’s intense industrial development. “Villages in the city” are literally mean villages which located inside the urban area. During China’s rapid urbanization, farming lands of the villages were expropriated by local government; eventually the whole village was surrounded by modern cities, thus forming the VIC. In Shenzhen, one of the fastest developing cities in south China, the problems of VICs draw particular attention. Gangxia Village is the last remaining VIC in the CBD. How it is to transform now an urgent problem. Although it still can be called a village, Gangxia has lost its original form. On the one hand, it has disorganized construction, harsh environments and social disorder; a neglected dwelling. But on the other hand, it retains many of the traditional, historical and cultural values of the villages, as well as its social and ecological customs. At the same time, the VIC provides a degree of support to the development of urbanization with a passive attitude. When facing the complex problems that VICs bring, we should consider how to let the VIC seamlessly integrates into the city, rather than completely dismantling it and simply building a new urban community as a substitute. The design concept of this thesis is to introduce urban agriculture and micro-economies to regenerate the Villages in the City. The design intends to use different design strategies to improve the current conditional of villages in the city, and to create a complex social network, which would re-connecting the relationship between the villages and its surroundings in a positive way and also helps the villages further development.