Urban Regeneration__Beijing 798 Art Zone

Abstract

With the accelerated pace of urbanization, China is undergoing a process of face-lifting changes, speaking in terms of city space and social structure. This has caused some devastating and severe consequences to a large amount of historical architectural heritage, including industrial heritage. With a growing interest shown in the concept of industrial heritage conservation, the notion of Industrial heritage conservation has often appeared and brought up by many of the contemporary architectural related literature; it has become one of the hot topics being discussed today. The process of space transition is often underpinned by the changes in value and perception of the participants'. By the influence of contemporary culture and new values, people nowadays are searching for ways to improve their living standards; as one of the leading industry, creative industry has made a prominent contribution to the development in the post-industrial age; it is still developing with an increased market demand ensured by strong grounds accumulated from high interest and desire for a higher standard of living condition shown by the current market. Art Zone is a special case and it is a combination of the two thought-provoking concepts. It is a site with diversity, malleability and flexibility. It is one of the rarely seen and well retained genuine Bauhaus style industrial building complexes worldwide and is perceived as a historical product of the planning economy period in China. Thus, it can be perceived as a valuable piece of art with historical, cultural, economic, social and aesthetic values that needs to be well preserved and reused for future development. This thesis attempts to illustrate the transformation of 798 from a former electronic factory to a contemporary incubator for the creative industry. This paper questions how to deal with 798's current situation and conditions in ways to explore feasible possibilities to create and search for strategies to best integrate the two concepts of conservation and reuse, in order to achieve a satisfactory result, as to build a healthier and benign environment while preserving the existing fabric of 798; yet given 798 a new definition by giving it a clarified recognition through the process of research, study and analysis of current site conditions and past precedents in order to quest for a pertinent solution of a harmonious design outcome.