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New urbanization planning to prevent interference from traditional real estate industry and traditional planning
2019-12-18
From September 23 to 24, 2014, the "2014 (9th) Urban Development and Planning Conference" themed "Ecological City, Leading Organic Evacuation" opened in Tianjin.
From September 23 to 24, 2014, the "2014 (9th) Urban Development and Planning Conference" with the theme "Ecological City, Leading Organic Dispersion" opened in Tianjin.
Few countries in the world treat the real estate industry as a pillar industry, but China does. From the perspective of synergetics, both real estate developers and local governments are self-organizing entities pursuing profit maximization and land finance, which reflects the function of self-organization. Due to certain policy gaps and misguidance, a significant portion of residential products have been alienated into symbols of wealth, investment tools, and financial products. During the golden decade, these all became "rigid demand." With current policy adjustments, if the real estate industry can occupy a suitable ecological niche, it will inevitably return to normalcy, possibly entering the so-called "silver age." Interview/Editing by Pu Shi.
Pathways to Achieving the Goal of Comfortable Living and Thriving Beautiful Towns Development
These two questions can be answered together. In fact, it is about answering the pathway to achieving the goal of comfortable living and thriving beautiful towns development. At last year's planning conference, I gave a summary introduction of 12 keywords on the low-carbon development path of towns. This year, these 12 key points have been further adjusted and optimized, divided into five different levels. For example, at the goal level: comfortable living and thriving, beautiful towns; at the policy level: policy mechanisms, low-carbon pathways, compact development, passive priority; at the industrial level: increasing sources and reducing consumption, industrial support; at the management level: high quality and efficiency, intelligent safety; at the cultural level: people-oriented, ecological civilization. These key points are not exhaustive but essential, applicable to cities, towns, and villages, with different emphases.
Regarding the goal of beautiful towns, villages and towns are actually more capable of realizing the ideal of "relying on existing mountain and water landscapes and other unique scenery, integrating the city into nature, allowing residents to see mountains, see water, and remember their hometown nostalgia."
In terms of policy mechanisms, the national new-type urbanization plan has been issued as a top-level design. The main task now is how to implement it appropriately at the bottom-level design and other levels, with a special emphasis on innovation awareness to prevent interference from traditional real estate and traditional planning. Beijing has already begun considering rural green ecological transformation work, indicating that implementation has started.
Village and town construction emphasizes passive priority, which means first implementing passive design strategies as much as possible, letting nature do the work, and supplementing the insufficient parts with optimized active equipment. The Sino-German cooperative project promoted by the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development's Science and Technology Development Promotion Center—passive low-energy houses—has been successfully implemented in Qinhuangdao. Its development approach is very worthy of reference for village and town construction.
Increasing sources and reducing consumption, for energy systems, mainly means developing clean and renewable energy, with solar energy being the foremost. Regarding the application of solar energy, the first step is to further improve its production efficiency. Solar water heating expert Mr. Li Muran cleverly collects sunlight using a simple method to increase the efficiency of solar thermal and photovoltaic production by 30-80%, which is no small matter and deserves attention. At the same time, the synergistic effect should be valued. Reasonable coordination and integration of various systems can achieve a 1+1>2 effect, which requires someone to coordinate and integrate comprehensively (also called super-technical integration). Architects, often project leaders, should take on this responsibility.
The Essence of Building Industrialization
I would like to share some immature views on building industrialization. I believe the essence of building industrialization is high quality and efficiency. High quality not only means high building product quality but also strong adaptability. Industrial buildings, public buildings, residential buildings, and even classical buildings should all be applicable; installation should be precise, safe, and reliable; the external appearance should be identifiable; prefabricated components should have a wide variety of choices. High quality is the premise of high efficiency, which mainly reflects in improving management levels and technological innovation. Management produces efficiency and can also reduce emissions. Innovation can improve efficiency and reduce costs. These are indispensable elements for promoting building industrialization.
Regarding the rapid progress of green building promotion mentioned above, I think a realistic analysis may be needed. As early as September 26, 2001, at the academic report meeting on "Resource Buildings and Sustainable Development," former Minister of Construction Ye Rutang proposed that "architects should take ecological environment construction as their responsibility," including ecological cities, ecological communities, and ecological (green) buildings. I believe green building is not a type of building but one of the building's performances. We can summarize building performance as: applicable, economical, aesthetic, green (or low-carbon). Architects must comprehensively control these performances and cannot be biased, so architects are unshirkably responsible for leading green building. Currently, many architects say they no longer do green building design, retreating during plan presentations, with consultants or technology company personnel often presenting instead. The reasons behind this are worth pondering, reminiscent of Zhao Benshan fooling Fan Wei's story. I believe the main reason green buildings are not yet widespread in China is the absence of architects. I am confident that the day architects lead green building design will be the day green buildings become widespread.
Regarding green building evaluation standards, the new national standard is about to be issued, and relevant experts and scholars have done a lot of work, which is commendable. The following opinions I hope are unnecessary because the issues may have been considered. First, we must clarify the difference and respective uses of evaluation standards and design guidelines. Guidelines are used to guide the construction process, and their content should be as complete and rich as possible, more detailed than the current green standards; evaluation standards are used to assess construction results and should be as concise as possible, like a camera that is complex but can be operated in a "foolproof" manner. At the same time, evaluation standards also guide the construction process. Performance evaluation should focus on key items and be quantifiable, with indicators such as carbon emissions, energy consumption, water consumption, air quality, and carbon sinks being sufficient. Labels are still needed but do not serve as guidance. Consulting units are also necessary but should focus mainly on training and improving equipment professionals in design units, who are the main partners cooperating with architects in designing green buildings.
The Root Cause of Uniformity Across Cities
Uniformity across cities is not unique to China. Since the heyday of Western modernist architecture, international styles have been pursued, which essentially means copying, resulting in a dead end and being declared "dead" in the United States. The emergence of uniformity across cities in China is even more natural: leaders like large squares, wide roads, administrative centers, and super high-rises; the public likes to follow the crowd, imitate, and compare; developers like large housing estates and complexes; designers face short cycles and large volumes of drawings; foreign teams adapt to China and do super puzzle work; leaders at all levels conduct similar domestic and international study tours; nowadays "replicable" has become a fashionable term... These factors "synergize" to produce uniformity across cities. To solve this problem, there is no universal key; only one key can open one lock.
Finally, Li Dexiang stated that the Urban Development and Planning Conference is a very good communication platform. I feel it is very inspiring and rewarding, a blessing for the planning and design community, and has played a huge role in promoting the development of low-carbon ecological cities and green buildings in China.
