Huairan Zhang

Buildings help us understand history and community (Merlino, 2018). They continue both our past and future (Huxtable, 1973). Jacobs (1961) Said: ‘new ideas must use old buildings.’

After the 1980s economic transformation, industrial housing failed. The young decamped and obsolescing facilities and infrastructure made relics of Soviet-style communities (Qiu, 2017).

This thesis explores new renewal types for Textile City, Xi’an, using top-down and bottom-up design strategies to revitalize it physically and socially.

Nowadays, in China, the popular architectural renew typology can be classified into 3 categories. The first one is the completed demolition of the old buildings and the high-rise construction. The second one is to build the commercial center after the demolition. The last one is the micro renew which only renew the facade or face of the old buildings rather than improve the holistic system or community structure.

This thesis explored a systematic adaptive typology to adapt the local context and social development. The typology is a various system and structure rather than an independent typology.

booklet
View booklet (on issuu)