Renee Chow will discuss her book, Changing Chinese Cities: The Potentials for Field Urbanism, at the Environmental Design Library on March 8th.
Synopisis: Using a lens of urban fields, Renee Y. Chow describes life in neighborhoods of Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and its canal environs. Detailed observations from courtyard to city are unlayered to reveal the relations that build extended environments. These attributes are then relayered to integrate the emergence of forms that are rooted to a place, providing a new paradigm for urban design and master planning.
Essays, mappings and case studies demonstrate how the design of fields can be made as compelling as figures.
Following thirty years of economic and political containment, cities are now showcases whose every component street, park, or building is designed to express distinctiveness. This propensity for the singular is erasing the relational fields that once distinguished each city.
In China’s first tier cities, the result is a cacophony of events where the extraordinary is becoming a burden to the ordinary.
Date: Tuesday, March 8, 2016
Time: 7:00pm to 8:30pm
Place: Environmental Design Library Atrium, 210 Wurster Hall
Post contributed by David Eifler, Environmental Design Librarian