What is the value of urban renewal? There are answers in the husband's houses of Zhangyuan, Yuyuan Road, and Xuhui. Urban renewal | Yuyuan Road | Husband

Recently, Xuhui District launched preliminary inquiries for the expropriation of Dong'an First and Second Villages, involving more than 6000 households, of which about 1700 are still living in incomplete residential units. The latest data shows that there are still 161 incomplete houses, approximately 260000 square meters, in Xuhui, involving more than 7600 households. It is expected that by the end of 2025, the entire district plans to accelerate the transformation of 10 million square meters of old housing from "three old" to "three new" in three years at a rate of 3 million square meters per year.

"The essence of a city is to provide a better life for every citizen and meet the needs of everyone to the greatest extent possible." At the theoretical and practical seminar on "Urban Renewal Empowering People to Have a Better Life" jointly held by Xuhui District and the Municipal Party School, Professor Wu Jiang from the School of Architecture and Urban Planning of Tongji University proposed that the happiness of urban residents should not only be obtained from the minimum supporting facilities, but also from the constantly improving "high configuration".

In recent years, from the renewal of historical areas such as Yuyuan Road and Zhangyuan, to the promotion of the "two old and one village" renovation throughout the city, Shanghai's urban renewal has always been exploring the "two legged approach": focusing on the value enhancement of the "old home" in the urban core area, and paying more attention to the overall improvement of living conditions. However, both of them face their own difficulties and challenges in their progress, and both require scientific planning and persistence with a single blueprint to the end.

Renovation of Two Old and One Village in Caohejing Street

Exploration, Innovation and Breakthrough in the Transformation of "Three Olds to Three News"

"The most essential value of a city is to create a livable and business friendly spatial environment, and the level of living is the most important aspect to measure the livability of a city." Wu Jiang said that when it comes to urban renewal in Shanghai, especially in maintaining stable housing supply, how to provide affordable, reasonably sized, and high-quality living space for the people is the basic requirement for a better urban life.

In areas with a history of over a century of development in Shanghai, the renewal and governance of existing residential buildings and communities can be seen as another dimension of "guarantee supply".

There are many English garden houses with a history of 100 years in Nong Ji Jia Garden, 188 South Shaanxi Road. At present, there are 127 households with 19 house numbers in the community. However, the 19 independent courtyards alone have accumulated as many as 24 illegal buildings over the years. On the one hand, most of these illegal buildings, which range from 1 square meter to more than 10 square meters, are residents who have no choice but to improve their housing conditions. However, the phenomenon of messy piles and private wires has caused significant fire safety hazards in this century-old community.

Renovation of Garden in Lane 188, Shaanxi South Road

Last midsummer, Hunan Road Street launched the "Beautiful Home" renovation of Lane 188, Shaanxi South Road. The old houses had a small area and high population density, and the first step of demolition encountered difficulties. To this end, Hunan Road Sub district plays a role in regional linkage management mechanism, collaborating with the Shaanxi New Residential Area Party Branch, Street Urban Management Squadron, Housing Management Office, and Hengfu Property to establish a task force. Each household visits to investigate the actual situation of illegal construction, communicates face-to-face with residents, understands the actual difficulties of each household, and uses flexible law enforcement to promote the demolition of illegal buildings in the community and eliminate safety hazards.

With the improvement of hardware facilities such as house repairs, Hunan Road Street is simultaneously using the "Beautiful Home" project to guide the improvement of the soft environment in residential areas. The Party Branch of Shaanxi New Residential Area took the lead in building a residential discussion platform. Unexpectedly, residents took the initiative to put forward many constructive and feasible suggestions only around the renovation of the community. "Can we refer to the neighboring alley to transform the garden wall into a railing, allowing the greenery to be revealed?" "But can privacy be guaranteed after 'greening'?" After a residents' hearing on whether to open the wall in the garden, Lane 188 on Shaanxi South Road adopted a "one garden, one plan" approach, giving all 19 courtyards a new appearance that meets the needs of residents. ".

The updated Leshan green space in Xujiahui Street

Chen Yang, Director of the Housing Management Bureau of Xuhui District, introduced that nearly 80% of the old residential areas in the district were built in 2000. There are not only husband housing communities represented by Dong'an New Village and Tianlin New Village, but also a large number of "first generation commercial housing" built in the 1990s. In promoting the transformation from "three old" to "three new", Xuhui District will explore multiple innovative breakthroughs in repair and renovation methods, including the combination of renovation and demolition, repair and elevator addition, renewal and pipeline renovation, green parking, and the addition of public activity spaces. "The residents have not yet decided whether to add elevators, so we will update the basic pipelines and necessary relocation. Once everyone changes their mind to add elevators in the future, there will be ready-made construction foundations."

Historical space stimulates new vitality in cities

Sun Jianping, a part-time professor at Tongji University and the Party School of the Shanghai Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, proposed that the new round of urban renewal in Shanghai needs to pay attention to the following characteristics, including "being able to read the city's annual rings in form, inheriting historical context in culture, carrying modern life in function, supporting institutional updates in system, widely participating in society, prioritizing service in management, and releasing inefficient resources in resources.". Among them, socialized and market-oriented participation is seen as the key to solving some of the difficulties and bottlenecks in current urban renewal.

Yuyuan Road Urban Renewal Expands to Block Depth Photo by Shu Shu

The Yuyuan Road Art Block, which was selected as a national level tourism and leisure district at the beginning of this year, accounted for 30% of the renewable space along the line before the launch of this round of urban renewal in 2014. "A two-story house with five and a half floors reveals the difficulty of urban renewal in the historic district of the city center," said Huang Zhiwei, Deputy General Manager of Chuangyi Industrial Co., Ltd.

To this end, the renovation of Yuyuan Road has adopted integrated management, which involves the linkage of streets, residential areas, park buildings, and block merchants along the line. By breaking down the walls and adding squares, and transforming disorderly parking spots into community activity areas, multiple spaces for residents and pedestrians to rest and communicate have been added to the Changning section of Yuyuan Road. The construction volume of Yuyuan Road, which was 3000 square meters during this round of renewal, has also expanded to 80000 square meters in depth to the block.

"We are also pondering where the value of urban renewal lies in the continuous years of renovation and investment," said Huang Zhiwei. The new track enterprises that continuously settle in the Yuyuan Road Art District have given the answer. When companies such as New Micro Technology and Guanchi Technology come to the vicinity of Yuyuan Road, programmers and geeks have also appeared on Yuyuan Road, which was previously favored by artists, designers, and trendsetters. The settlement of technology enterprises not only brings about increased tax revenue, but also a new talent circle.

Zhang Yuan

Last November, Zhangyuan officially opened to the public. Although only about one-third of the total project size, Zhangyuan West District, has been opened, with the entry of luxury brands such as Louis Vuitton, Dior, Bulgari, and Gucci, as well as the opening of the limited time pedestrian street on Maoming North Road, the daily average passenger flow of Zhangyuan has reached 25000 people, with a peak of 45000 people per day. "Whenever a limited time pedestrian street is opened on weekends, the average revenue of merchants along the street can increase by 20%, up to 60%, indicating that the effect of pedestrian streets is very obvious," said Shi Yunlun, Chairman of Shanghai Jing'an Real Estate Co., Ltd.

Zhang Garden, which was rebuilt and returned after a hundred years, explores how to combine the improvement of future urban functions and space quality with the protection and preservation of historic buildings in Shanghai center. Shi Yunlun introduced that in the future, Zhangyuan East District will balance office, residential, hotel and other functions, extending westward to commercial, department store, and retail spaces. The existing Fengshengli will naturally undertake supporting businesses such as catering and fashion. Zhangyuan East District will also make breakthroughs in underground space development, planning a three story underground space, connecting the transfer of rail transit lines 2, 12, and 13, and providing nearly 500 parking spaces, forming a composite space with historical buildings on the ground that not only has development depth but also can carry various urban functions.

"When there is no increment in urban construction space, urban renewal needs to find various ways to mix and overlap the use of existing space, transform planning from flat to three-dimensional, and make the historical space of the city a source of stimulating urban vitality," said Wu Jiang.