published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Architecture

published_or_final_version / Architecture / Master / Master of Landscape Architecture

Under the transformation from “rural China” to “urban China”, cities in this country are confronting with the increasingly complicated problems of urban decline, not just physical decay as well as functional deterioration. The approach prevalently adopted, however, is of tearing down the old and starting the new from scratch, which relies on immediate measures of physical construction but neglects the objectives of social inclusion and heritage protection. For Chinese cities, it is necessary to reconsider the issue on urban regeneration from a more holistic and multidimensional perspective. Since the late 1990s, a new concept—creative industries—has attracted interest over the world. In recent years, many big cities in China, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, have clearly seen a rapid growth of this new industrial sector; a variety of creative industrial clusters (CICs) have emerged in these cities, showing wide potentials for promoting urban regeneration. The recent rise of creative industries and CICs may provide us a new perspective to rethink the issue on urban regeneration in Chinese cities. This study tries to explore the relationships between creative industries, CICs and urban regeneration in Shanghai. Through the exploration, it expects to find an effective approach to promote comprehensive urban regeneration in Chinese cities under the transformation context. As “creative industries” is a relatively fresh concept and the boom of creative industries and clusters just happened in China in recent years, there is a big lack of research related to creative industries in the Chinese context. The research that links creative industries with urban regeneration is much less. This study is an effort to fill this research gap. Around an analytical framework developed from the understanding of three key concepts—creative industries, CICs and urban regeneration, this study conducts two-level analyses. Firstly, it discusses some key issues on urban regeneration, creative industries and clusters respectively at the municipal level. Secondly, it carries out the case study of M50—a CIC in Shanghai—at the local level, based on questionnaire survey and deep interviews. Through the two-level analyses on Shanghai, this study suggests that the policy makers in Chinese cities should recognize the complexity of urban decline problems and view the issue of urban regeneration from a more comprehensive, holistic and multidimensional perspective. Considering the significant implications of the creative industries and CICs for urban regeneration, this study also suggests that the policy makers should adopt the creative industries and CICs as an important strategy to promote urban regeneration, and produce an integrated and systematic plan specifically on CICs that is oriented to urban regeneration and incorporated in the city’s master plan. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Environmental Management / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Images of Shikumen Housing have been regularly present as Shanghai’s “collective memory”, serving as testimony to the city’s rapid growth from a backward colonial enter pot into a booming metropolis in the past decades. After 100 years of usage, it is now threatened by modern lifestyle, both functionally and materially. Revitalization is needed to extend the lifespan of the houses within. With a burgeoning enthusiasm towards urban revitalization, various approaches of revitalization have been tried, among which Tianzi Fang(田子坊), located in Taikang Road, Luwan District, is unique for its coexistence of original residents and creative industry practitioners. Results from the case study suggest that Tianzi Fang approach is more welcomed by direct stakeholders as well as visiting tourists. It challenges the conventional mode of urban revitalization by a community-initial approach. This dissertation investigates the case of Tianzi Fang. First hand survey on the spot together with secondary information collected and analyzed to have a comprehensive understanding of the characteristic and process of the revitalization for sustainable development. A literature review commented that the efficiency of public participation was appreciated which contributes a lot to Tianzi Fang’s success. A management proposal is raised at the end of the dissertation as a conclusion of the study and a reference for further research. / published_or_final_version / Conservation / Master / Master of Science in Conservation

Urban conservation (or heritage conservation in the urban setting), by its nature, imposes irreversible and enduring impacts on the built environment and urban fabrics. While conservation of individual monuments of indisputable historic and cultural significance often ignites heated debates, protests and resistance movements, the episodic conservation efforts of everyday architectures and heritage assets woven in the urban setting are often overlooked. Evidently within the rapidly changing context of urban China, which is virtually a contested ground for the struggles of many marginalized social groups and the upholding of local values and lived experiences amid the globalization waves and economic development, the urban conservation practice has not been systematically evaluated, monitored nor reviewed from an integrated perspective. This fittingly calls for the utility of French philosopher Henri Lefebvre’s triadic “conceived – perceived – lived” spatial framework, which has been proven useful in discerning the spatial changes and power interplays embedded in the process and outcome of the production and re-production of space. As suggested in the title, the application of the Lefebvrian spatial framework in this research endeavor is manifold, in both spatial and temporal senses: First, to discern how the concerned space was historically produced; Then, to examine how the space has been re-produced (as in produced for the second time) in the conservation processes and outcomes; At the same time, to paradoxically explore whether and how the space has been reproduced (as in organically and biologically conceived, given birth and nurtured) to perpetuate for a sustainable future; Ultimately, to investigate how urban conservation efforts can possibly facilitate or impact on the preservation, integration and transformation of space from a physical construct to a mental construct in the urban restructuring processes across China today. To this end, two fundamentally different yet very telling case study sites of urban conservation in Shanghai, the forefront city of China, have been identified, namely, Xintiandi and Tianzifang. They represent the market-driven conservation approach and the community-initiated conservation approach respectively, and both have deep-rooted causal relationships with the economic and developmental boom and evolution of urban conservation practice in Shanghai, and China as a whole. Through a comparative analysis of the two case studies, this research endeavor examines, individually and collectively, what the driving forces and the evolving relationships of the key players are behind the conservation efforts, and whose interests have been represented in the conservation processes, whether the lived environments, routines and experiences have been identified, respected and conserved; thereby summarizing the salient issues facing urban conservation efforts in China today, and reflecting upon how urban conservation practice can contribute to the sustainability of urban development and redevelopment in Chinese cities and beyond. / published_or_final_version / Urban Planning and Design / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

University of Macau / Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities / Department of Government and Public Administration