DT
D. Tan
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Persistence of Everyday Sacred Landscapes
Shrines, Village Temples, and Hillside Cemetery in Shenzhen
This study analyzes the persistence of everyday sacred landscapes in the Chinese megacity of Shenzhen. It is inspired by Lefebvre’s notion of bodies in relation to space, material religion, and Chinese popular religion concerning reciprocal interactions of bodies and souls. Through a detailed examination of shrines, village temples, and a hillside cemetery using architectural ethnographic mapping and qualitative methods, the case study of Pingshan village demonstrates that various sacred spatial practices persist and actively intersect with modern interventions and urban regulations, woven into everyday life. The process of production and reproduction of sacred landscapes reveals their dual nature as both enduring and temporary, challenging the static notions of space. In conclusion, this study suggests that recognizing the intersubjectivities among human, natural, and spiritual elements allows the sacred to function as a spatial figure of landscape infrastructure, one that possesses the structuring power to reconfigure urban settlements toward inclusivity.
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This study analyzes the persistence of everyday sacred landscapes in the Chinese megacity of Shenzhen. It is inspired by Lefebvre’s notion of bodies in relation to space, material religion, and Chinese popular religion concerning reciprocal interactions of bodies and souls. Through a detailed examination of shrines, village temples, and a hillside cemetery using architectural ethnographic mapping and qualitative methods, the case study of Pingshan village demonstrates that various sacred spatial practices persist and actively intersect with modern interventions and urban regulations, woven into everyday life. The process of production and reproduction of sacred landscapes reveals their dual nature as both enduring and temporary, challenging the static notions of space. In conclusion, this study suggests that recognizing the intersubjectivities among human, natural, and spiritual elements allows the sacred to function as a spatial figure of landscape infrastructure, one that possesses the structuring power to reconfigure urban settlements toward inclusivity.
This manifesto uses education as a medium to bridge research and practice in architecture and urbanism, while stimulating critical thinking and enhancing ecological and social awareness among students in the pursuit of responsible design.
Since the late 20th century, architects, urban designers, and planners have made efforts to address challenges associated with climate change, urbanisation, and environmental degradation. Researchers have proposed concepts, such as ‘landscape as urbanism’, to invoke a new way of understanding and intervening in urban and rural environments. For these efforts to have a wide impact, they require public resonance. On-the-ground projects must leverage existing networks and values and foster conscious behaviours.
However, numerous projects failed to achieve this by following the conventional practices, thus limiting their societal implications and sometimes proving counterproductive. A huge gap rests between academic research and design practice at different scales, from interior space to urban landscape. In this regard, we argue that this gap should be addressed by reshaping education in higher education institutions, where researchers and current and future practitioners (students) naturally converge.
Effective design requires a sound basis of field understanding, which extends beyond merely visual spatial information to include the ability to recognise human interactions embedded in the context. In this manifesto, with a specific example, we detail fieldwork methodologies that illustrate key information to examine and how to tailor this information considering its applicability in the process of design. We then propose a transdisciplinary, hands-on curriculum focused on approaching responsible design through fieldwork in architecture and urbanism. ...
Since the late 20th century, architects, urban designers, and planners have made efforts to address challenges associated with climate change, urbanisation, and environmental degradation. Researchers have proposed concepts, such as ‘landscape as urbanism’, to invoke a new way of understanding and intervening in urban and rural environments. For these efforts to have a wide impact, they require public resonance. On-the-ground projects must leverage existing networks and values and foster conscious behaviours.
However, numerous projects failed to achieve this by following the conventional practices, thus limiting their societal implications and sometimes proving counterproductive. A huge gap rests between academic research and design practice at different scales, from interior space to urban landscape. In this regard, we argue that this gap should be addressed by reshaping education in higher education institutions, where researchers and current and future practitioners (students) naturally converge.
Effective design requires a sound basis of field understanding, which extends beyond merely visual spatial information to include the ability to recognise human interactions embedded in the context. In this manifesto, with a specific example, we detail fieldwork methodologies that illustrate key information to examine and how to tailor this information considering its applicability in the process of design. We then propose a transdisciplinary, hands-on curriculum focused on approaching responsible design through fieldwork in architecture and urbanism. ...
This manifesto uses education as a medium to bridge research and practice in architecture and urbanism, while stimulating critical thinking and enhancing ecological and social awareness among students in the pursuit of responsible design.
Since the late 20th century, architects, urban designers, and planners have made efforts to address challenges associated with climate change, urbanisation, and environmental degradation. Researchers have proposed concepts, such as ‘landscape as urbanism’, to invoke a new way of understanding and intervening in urban and rural environments. For these efforts to have a wide impact, they require public resonance. On-the-ground projects must leverage existing networks and values and foster conscious behaviours.
However, numerous projects failed to achieve this by following the conventional practices, thus limiting their societal implications and sometimes proving counterproductive. A huge gap rests between academic research and design practice at different scales, from interior space to urban landscape. In this regard, we argue that this gap should be addressed by reshaping education in higher education institutions, where researchers and current and future practitioners (students) naturally converge.
Effective design requires a sound basis of field understanding, which extends beyond merely visual spatial information to include the ability to recognise human interactions embedded in the context. In this manifesto, with a specific example, we detail fieldwork methodologies that illustrate key information to examine and how to tailor this information considering its applicability in the process of design. We then propose a transdisciplinary, hands-on curriculum focused on approaching responsible design through fieldwork in architecture and urbanism.
Since the late 20th century, architects, urban designers, and planners have made efforts to address challenges associated with climate change, urbanisation, and environmental degradation. Researchers have proposed concepts, such as ‘landscape as urbanism’, to invoke a new way of understanding and intervening in urban and rural environments. For these efforts to have a wide impact, they require public resonance. On-the-ground projects must leverage existing networks and values and foster conscious behaviours.
However, numerous projects failed to achieve this by following the conventional practices, thus limiting their societal implications and sometimes proving counterproductive. A huge gap rests between academic research and design practice at different scales, from interior space to urban landscape. In this regard, we argue that this gap should be addressed by reshaping education in higher education institutions, where researchers and current and future practitioners (students) naturally converge.
Effective design requires a sound basis of field understanding, which extends beyond merely visual spatial information to include the ability to recognise human interactions embedded in the context. In this manifesto, with a specific example, we detail fieldwork methodologies that illustrate key information to examine and how to tailor this information considering its applicability in the process of design. We then propose a transdisciplinary, hands-on curriculum focused on approaching responsible design through fieldwork in architecture and urbanism.
Forms of Hybridity
Tradition and Modernity in Shenzhen’s Urban Fringe
This thesis explores the possibilities of future inclusive urbanism by investigating how tradition and modernity—in socio-spatial and ecological practices—interact in Chinese urban contexts and what implicit values they carry in post-growth cities. Over the last four decades, accelerated state-led modernisation, accompanied by technocratic urban planning, has led to the making of a spatially homogenised ‘generic city’, often neglecting history and obscuring social-ecological inequalities. However, the persistence of thousands of villages in a city reveals a more complex urban reality, and the recent slowdown demands an inclusive approach to urban planning and design, making it necessary to document values of the past and present for the future.
Using the palimpsest analogy, the research conceptualises a city as a multilayered system with a nonlinear history, enabling the unravelling of historical and cultural layers from the past in present-day readings. It rethinks pluralisation of modernity as reflected in South China’s urban landscapes since the 1980s. An analysis of 50 empirical studies reveals that Chinese modernity is an evolving process entangled with traditions.
This entanglement is further elucidated through an architectural ethnographic investigation of Pingshan village in Shenzhen, focusing on the lived urban spaces, the surviving agricultural landscapes, and the omnipresent sacred spaces. Using ethnographic drawing, photography and interviews, the research reveals that traditions transform themselves while interacting with modern interventions in daily life, producing various hybrid spatial forms and practices. Reflecting on empirical findings, the research proposes hybridisation as the potential for building future inclusiveness in architecture and urbanism in China. ...
Using the palimpsest analogy, the research conceptualises a city as a multilayered system with a nonlinear history, enabling the unravelling of historical and cultural layers from the past in present-day readings. It rethinks pluralisation of modernity as reflected in South China’s urban landscapes since the 1980s. An analysis of 50 empirical studies reveals that Chinese modernity is an evolving process entangled with traditions.
This entanglement is further elucidated through an architectural ethnographic investigation of Pingshan village in Shenzhen, focusing on the lived urban spaces, the surviving agricultural landscapes, and the omnipresent sacred spaces. Using ethnographic drawing, photography and interviews, the research reveals that traditions transform themselves while interacting with modern interventions in daily life, producing various hybrid spatial forms and practices. Reflecting on empirical findings, the research proposes hybridisation as the potential for building future inclusiveness in architecture and urbanism in China. ...
This thesis explores the possibilities of future inclusive urbanism by investigating how tradition and modernity—in socio-spatial and ecological practices—interact in Chinese urban contexts and what implicit values they carry in post-growth cities. Over the last four decades, accelerated state-led modernisation, accompanied by technocratic urban planning, has led to the making of a spatially homogenised ‘generic city’, often neglecting history and obscuring social-ecological inequalities. However, the persistence of thousands of villages in a city reveals a more complex urban reality, and the recent slowdown demands an inclusive approach to urban planning and design, making it necessary to document values of the past and present for the future.
Using the palimpsest analogy, the research conceptualises a city as a multilayered system with a nonlinear history, enabling the unravelling of historical and cultural layers from the past in present-day readings. It rethinks pluralisation of modernity as reflected in South China’s urban landscapes since the 1980s. An analysis of 50 empirical studies reveals that Chinese modernity is an evolving process entangled with traditions.
This entanglement is further elucidated through an architectural ethnographic investigation of Pingshan village in Shenzhen, focusing on the lived urban spaces, the surviving agricultural landscapes, and the omnipresent sacred spaces. Using ethnographic drawing, photography and interviews, the research reveals that traditions transform themselves while interacting with modern interventions in daily life, producing various hybrid spatial forms and practices. Reflecting on empirical findings, the research proposes hybridisation as the potential for building future inclusiveness in architecture and urbanism in China.
Using the palimpsest analogy, the research conceptualises a city as a multilayered system with a nonlinear history, enabling the unravelling of historical and cultural layers from the past in present-day readings. It rethinks pluralisation of modernity as reflected in South China’s urban landscapes since the 1980s. An analysis of 50 empirical studies reveals that Chinese modernity is an evolving process entangled with traditions.
This entanglement is further elucidated through an architectural ethnographic investigation of Pingshan village in Shenzhen, focusing on the lived urban spaces, the surviving agricultural landscapes, and the omnipresent sacred spaces. Using ethnographic drawing, photography and interviews, the research reveals that traditions transform themselves while interacting with modern interventions in daily life, producing various hybrid spatial forms and practices. Reflecting on empirical findings, the research proposes hybridisation as the potential for building future inclusiveness in architecture and urbanism in China.
Rethinking Rural Studies is a novel reflection on rural studies through the lens of the structure and well-being of rural people and communities in the UK, the US, and Europe. The authors, David L. Brown and Mark Shucksmith are both emeritus professors and remain enthusiastic and active in research in rural societies and urban-rural interfaces. David L. Brown, a sociologist by training, is an emeritus international professor at Cornell University. Mark Shucksmith is an emeritus professor of planning at Newcastle University. In this book, they probe retrospective theories, knowledge, and experiments with supporting cases in rural research and practices, using a forward-looking perspective to identify emerging issues and propose new research agendas and possibilities for civic discourse and public policy formulation. Viewing rural studies as holistic and trans-disciplinary, they underscore the need for multi-methodological research strategies to foster innovation and in-depth examination of places embedded within the intricate and interrelated economic, social, and environmental systems.
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Rethinking Rural Studies is a novel reflection on rural studies through the lens of the structure and well-being of rural people and communities in the UK, the US, and Europe. The authors, David L. Brown and Mark Shucksmith are both emeritus professors and remain enthusiastic and active in research in rural societies and urban-rural interfaces. David L. Brown, a sociologist by training, is an emeritus international professor at Cornell University. Mark Shucksmith is an emeritus professor of planning at Newcastle University. In this book, they probe retrospective theories, knowledge, and experiments with supporting cases in rural research and practices, using a forward-looking perspective to identify emerging issues and propose new research agendas and possibilities for civic discourse and public policy formulation. Viewing rural studies as holistic and trans-disciplinary, they underscore the need for multi-methodological research strategies to foster innovation and in-depth examination of places embedded within the intricate and interrelated economic, social, and environmental systems.
Urban Villages in Shenzhen
The Meaning of Being Neglected
Chinese urbanization has been taking place at an unprecedented pace and scale. In the last four decades, the urban landscape in China has been drastically reshaped, with most land being taken, fully developed, or redeveloped. What left are those unoccupied spaces as the exception of state which provide a different scenario, potential and deserve more attention. [...]
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Chinese urbanization has been taking place at an unprecedented pace and scale. In the last four decades, the urban landscape in China has been drastically reshaped, with most land being taken, fully developed, or redeveloped. What left are those unoccupied spaces as the exception of state which provide a different scenario, potential and deserve more attention. [...]
Beyond the palimpsest
Traditions and modernity in urban villages of Shenzhen, China
This study uses the palimpsest analogy to explore the interactions between traditions and modernity in Chinese urban contexts. Chinese megacities including Shenzhen have undergone continually radical and dramatic transformations. The palimpsest notion, a layered, overwritten surface with traces of earlier content, enables us to unravel historical and cultural layers from the past in the present readings. Shenzhen is then conceptualised as a palimpsest, illustrating its uneven stratification process in which urban villages contain deep descriptive layers, encompassing both traditional myths and futuristic modern ideas. The case study of Pingshan village through a close examination of specific locations via ethnographic mapping demonstrates that each particular space is an accumulation of various ways of palimpsest. This gives a glimpse of the traditions that being handed down and how they intersect with modern influences to produce hybrid spaces. These traditions are the forms of practice embedded in the everyday lives of residents, including long-term villagers and arrived migrants. The study concludes by proposing a framework for creating the potential of hybridisation to inform a more inclusive approach to urban planning and design.
...
This study uses the palimpsest analogy to explore the interactions between traditions and modernity in Chinese urban contexts. Chinese megacities including Shenzhen have undergone continually radical and dramatic transformations. The palimpsest notion, a layered, overwritten surface with traces of earlier content, enables us to unravel historical and cultural layers from the past in the present readings. Shenzhen is then conceptualised as a palimpsest, illustrating its uneven stratification process in which urban villages contain deep descriptive layers, encompassing both traditional myths and futuristic modern ideas. The case study of Pingshan village through a close examination of specific locations via ethnographic mapping demonstrates that each particular space is an accumulation of various ways of palimpsest. This gives a glimpse of the traditions that being handed down and how they intersect with modern influences to produce hybrid spaces. These traditions are the forms of practice embedded in the everyday lives of residents, including long-term villagers and arrived migrants. The study concludes by proposing a framework for creating the potential of hybridisation to inform a more inclusive approach to urban planning and design.
Urban orchard in a megacity
Formality and informality in China
This anonymized Research Note reports qualitative observations and interview evidence to explore the operation of a U-pick lychee orchard located in China’s Pearl River Delta. Observation reveals the ironic juxtaposition of an owner-built cottage on a forested hillside surrounded by an intensively planned, densely populated urban environment featuring high-rise apartment towers. Field data show that informality, social networks, and petty entrepreneurialism are all manifest in urban agriculture, lychee production, labor, and land tenure. This Research Note illustrates the interstitial porosity that exists within the incorporated bounds of an urban area with informal economic activity adjacent to formal occupations and hillside orchards in the shadows of high-rise apartment towers.
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This anonymized Research Note reports qualitative observations and interview evidence to explore the operation of a U-pick lychee orchard located in China’s Pearl River Delta. Observation reveals the ironic juxtaposition of an owner-built cottage on a forested hillside surrounded by an intensively planned, densely populated urban environment featuring high-rise apartment towers. Field data show that informality, social networks, and petty entrepreneurialism are all manifest in urban agriculture, lychee production, labor, and land tenure. This Research Note illustrates the interstitial porosity that exists within the incorporated bounds of an urban area with informal economic activity adjacent to formal occupations and hillside orchards in the shadows of high-rise apartment towers.
How was botany as a new science established in modern China? In his book Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China, Nicholas K. Menzies unravels the story of the transition from traditional knowledge about plants to the science of botany, particularly during the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. In light of various potential epistemological representations of an objective nature, he acknowledges the profound difference between the Chinese traditional way of understanding the world and the Eurocentric scientific approach. Menzies gives his attention to the places that they intersect.
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How was botany as a new science established in modern China? In his book Ordering the Myriad Things: From Traditional Knowledge to Scientific Botany in China, Nicholas K. Menzies unravels the story of the transition from traditional knowledge about plants to the science of botany, particularly during the period from the mid-nineteenth century to the mid-twentieth century. In light of various potential epistemological representations of an objective nature, he acknowledges the profound difference between the Chinese traditional way of understanding the world and the Eurocentric scientific approach. Menzies gives his attention to the places that they intersect.
Moral knowledge, and its spatial articulation, are being ignored in the rapid urban growth that results from globalisation. The need to learn from tradition and integrate urban heritage values into the wider framework of sustainable development and citizen engagement is urgently recommended by UNESCO. This paper explores the concept of moral knowledge (informed by Confucianism) and its influence on the spatial configuration of the urban village Huaide in Shenzhen, China. Chinese moral and aesthetic knowledge was practised and enforced throughout the imperial period via rituals, writing and painting, agriculture and garden design, and city governance. Although globalisation’s dominant Western paradigms are challenging traditional Chinese practices, such traditional knowledge can serve as cultural forces shaping the distinct characteristics of Chinese cities. Using mapping supplemented by fieldwork photographs, we argue that Huaide Village is a relational space embedding social and ecological values guided by traditional Chinese moral knowledge. Amidst the transitional phase of urban redevelopment, the network of the retained clan houses, temples, courtyards and hierarchic streets harbours moral and cultural traditions. The village acts as a resistance to the homogenised urban spaces for a ‘global’ city. This paper adds to the discourse on urban villages by enriching our understanding of their lived spaces while also providing insights for possible future urban renewal strategies that engender better citizen engagement.
...
Moral knowledge, and its spatial articulation, are being ignored in the rapid urban growth that results from globalisation. The need to learn from tradition and integrate urban heritage values into the wider framework of sustainable development and citizen engagement is urgently recommended by UNESCO. This paper explores the concept of moral knowledge (informed by Confucianism) and its influence on the spatial configuration of the urban village Huaide in Shenzhen, China. Chinese moral and aesthetic knowledge was practised and enforced throughout the imperial period via rituals, writing and painting, agriculture and garden design, and city governance. Although globalisation’s dominant Western paradigms are challenging traditional Chinese practices, such traditional knowledge can serve as cultural forces shaping the distinct characteristics of Chinese cities. Using mapping supplemented by fieldwork photographs, we argue that Huaide Village is a relational space embedding social and ecological values guided by traditional Chinese moral knowledge. Amidst the transitional phase of urban redevelopment, the network of the retained clan houses, temples, courtyards and hierarchic streets harbours moral and cultural traditions. The village acts as a resistance to the homogenised urban spaces for a ‘global’ city. This paper adds to the discourse on urban villages by enriching our understanding of their lived spaces while also providing insights for possible future urban renewal strategies that engender better citizen engagement.