Architectural Design : The Big Feet Aesthetic and the Art of Survival
The ancient tradition of foot binding in China sacrificed the function of rustic "big feet"in the name of gentrification and beauty.Kongjian Yu espouses an approach to landscape design that celebrates the aesthetic of high-performing,low-cost,healthy feet.Through his description of three projects,located in very different regions of China,he explains how working,adaptive landscapes based on farming techniques can provide an environment with a self-sustaining identity.
Kongjian Yu BEIJING MAY 2012
If I were to talk of the identity of Chinese culture in general -and design culture in particular - I would make a distinction between “low” and“high”, or elite culture. Low culture makes the daily life of the normal Chinese possible -especially that of the peasants. Here, design is a technique for adaptation. It is “the art of survival”：the art of levelling the earth and irrigating and growing crops; the pleasure of the harvest; and the celebration that follows -useful and beautiful.
By contrast, we have high culture, the art of pleasure-making and ornament. Ornamental gardening is the cultivation of trees to blossom rather than bear fruit. It is a beautiful but useless pursuit, like the notorious Chinese tradition of foot binding that sacrificed the function of rustic “big feet” in the name of gentrification and beauty -the “little feet aesthetic”. Our society has been misled by the “little feet aesthetic”. Elite culture has prioritised its own definition of beauty and good taste, while “rustic”, high-performing, low-cost, healthy “big feet” culture has been patronised and neglected. A re-appreciation of low culture requires a “big feet aesthetic”.
World cities, and especially those in China，face deepening environmental problems: flood, drought, pollution, aquifer drop, loss of natural habitat and cultural heritage. A low-culture approach using what I term “adaptive design” provides a technique for solving problems in an economical and ecological way. Place-making can be achieved with monumental architecture, but this type of identity is forged at great expense. It is easily superseded. Instead, like a successful organism, a place will sustain its identity when its design is adaptive -when it responds elegantly and efficiently to its environmental setting so that new uses can endure. This is the art of survival.
The following three projects, located in distinctly different parts of China, demonstrate that working, adaptive landscapes based on farming techniques can provide an environment with a self-sustaining identity. Each is a testimony to the “big feet aesthetic”.
Turenscape,Shanghai Houtan Park,Shanghai,China,2010
Diagram showing the ecological water-filtration design that produces 2,400 cubic metres (84,755 cubic feet)of clean water each day.
The platform and boardwalk over the wetland allows visitors to experience the working landscape. The environmental installation is made of steel reclaimed from the site's previous industrial use, and acts as a shelter as well as viewing frame.
LANDSCAPE AS A LIVING SYSTEM
Shanghai's Huangpu River is heavily polluted and requires flood control. Built on a former riverside industrial site, Houtan Park is a linear wetland designed to reinvigorate the waterfront -a living machine that cleanses contaminated water from the river. Cascades and terraces oxygenate the nutrient-rich water, retain nutrients and reduce suspended sediments. The terraces alleviate the elevation difference between city and river, and act as floodable buffers that reconnect people to the water's edge.
This “working” landscape generates enjoyment too. Aerating falls and fountains soothe the senses Plantings -particularly “messy” vegetation such as reeds -and disabled access ramps allow all visitors a close experience of nature. A mix of wetland plants and crops such as rice，sunflower and canola create an urban farm where people witness seasonal change. Woven together by a network of boardwalks, paths and platforms, the park's new wetland, ecological flood control，reclaimed industrial structures and urban agriculture are integral components of an adaptive design strategy that cleanses polluted river water and restores the degraded waterfront.
Turenscape,Tianjin Qiaoyuan Park,Tianjin City,China,2008
A bird's-eye view of the park in the summer shows the diverse,patchy landscape of pond cavities occupied by different plant communities.
This 20 hectare(49-acre) site was previously a shooting range,and then a rubbish dump and drainage sink for urban stormwater. Inspired by the adaptive vegetation communities that dot the region's flat coastal landscape,Turenscape developed a solution called the “Adaptation Palettes”.
THE ADAPTATION PALETTES
In contemporary Chinese cities, instead of serving as ecosystems, public spaces are burdens that consume energy and water. By contrast Qiaoyuan Park in Tianjin City provides an environmental service and a living demonstration of natural processes too. This 20-hectare (49-acre) site was previously a shooting range, and then a rubbish dump and drainage sink for urban stormwater Inspired by the adaptive vegetation communities that dot the region's flat coastal landscape，Turenscape developed a solution called the 'Adaptation Palettes'.
Numerous pond cavities of different depths were dug to retain stormwater and create diverse habitats. Mixed plant species were sowed, introducing a regenerative process that would evolve over time. Platforms connecting to a matrix of pedestrian paths were inserted in the centre of the pond to enable intimate contact with nature The previously heavily polluted and deserted space is now a beautiful native landscape, centred around an ecology-driven，low-maintenance 'big feet aesthetic' that lures thousands of visitors daily.
Platforms connecting to a matrix of pedestrian paths were inserted in the centre of the pond to enable intimate contact with nature.
The site plan is inspired by the regional landscape,with its 'patchy' habitats sensitive to subtle changes of water and ph values.
Turenscape,Qunli Stormwater Park,Qunli New
District,Haerbin City,Heilongjiang Province,
China,2010-11
One of five pavilions evenly distributed along the perimeter of the park, the Bamboo Pavilion sits on a mound above the wetland.
site plan showing the layers of cut-and-fill.and the skywalk.
GREEN SPONGE FOR A WATER-RESILIENT CITY
Contemporary cities are not resilient to surface-water inundation. Qunli Stormwater Park -the 34-hectare (84-acrel centre to a new urban district on the outskirts of Haerbin City -is a green sponge that cleanses and stores floodwater, recharging local aquifers.
Simple cut-and-fill techniques create a necklace of ponds and mounds that surrounds a core of former wetland. The peripheral ring is a filter, a cleansing buffer zone for the core, and a welcome transition between nature and city. Native wetland grasses and meadow plants of various depths are seeded in the ponds to initiate natural evolutionary processes. Groves of betula -local silver birch trees -are grown on the mounds to create a dense forest setting.Like entering the valley of rolling, birch-clad hills, visitors can penetrate through the landform ring, across platforms floating in wetland bubbles, past the skywalk above the filtrating ponds, and up to the towers with their panoramic wetland views. The quiet atmosphere is a dramatic change from the bustling urban streets just metres away.
SUSTAINING CULTURAL IDENTITY
Each of the projects here is a distinctly contemporary design,and yet each addresses the cultural,historical and material legacy engrained in its pre-existing landscape. Shanghai Houtan Park was a former socialist industrial site.Industrial structures-the cargo pier,recycled steel-were substantially reused in situ with the new purpose:to give identity to the site,and to shelter,pave and shade.Qiaoyuan Park was a shooting range dotted with fishing ponds.The new design preserved the landform of the shooting bunker and retained the fishing ponds, referencing their practical use within the regional landscape.At Qunli Stormwater Park only the essential cut-and-fill changes were made to the periphery to adapt the site for use by loval people.And it is they who are the priority in all three projects:their senses,their enjoyment,and the way they seat or gather in family groups-a reflection of Chinese culture.
Indigenous materials are used in all of the projects to define their identities. Bamboo, lotus and rice give Shanghai Houtan Park a Jiangnan (south of the Yangtze River) sensibility. Tianjin's environment is a natural adaption of the native habitats of northern China's patchy coastal landscape,reflecting the region's water and alkaline-sensitive vegetation,while Qunli Stormwater Park's abundant silver birch trees clearly identify its northeastern Chinese locality.
Finally,each of the projects has also been influenced by Chinese landscape design culture:the traditional Chinese culture of farming,not that of classical gardening,which is not relevant to the problems that need to be solved.Houtan Park's filtering wetland is inspired by the rice terraces in the mountainous area:the way they are levelled,irrigated,fertilised and grown.In Qiaoyun Park and Qunli Stormwater Park too,inspiration lies in the farmers'big feet aesthetic'-simple cut-and-fill techniques,stormwater collection and soil remediation.After all,it is the farm-the 'working' place-that has its own identity:the ability to adapt to its environment, to solve problems,to be useful as well as beautiful. It is not the art of ornament that gives a place a sustainable cultural identity.Rather,it is the art of survival.
After all,it is the farm-the'working'place-that has its own identity:the ability to adapt to its environment,to solve problems,to be useful as well as beautiful.It is not the art of ornament that gives a place a sustainable cultural identity.Rather,it it the art of survival.
