A new space race in the city
Urban developers in Shanghai seek to transform public areas through a people-centric approach
Despite living in a city that has one of the highest population densities in the world — more than 23,000 people live per square kilometer in the downtown area — the residents of Shanghai have seen public spaces mushroom over the past five years as the campaign for micro-renewal of urban spaces continues to gather pace.
But with few open spaces, developers have had to get creative with their approach. For instance, public amenities such as sports equipment, activity rooms, benches and jogging trails have been introduced in formerly underutilized and sealed off spaces like beneath overpasses, deserted warehouses and basements of old housing communities.
The title of a design contest on urban renewal aptly describes these pockets of development in the city as “a metamorphosis at your doorstep”.
Organized by the Shanghai Commission of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, the recent contest saw dozens of participants submit proposals for renewal plans for 101 locations in the city.
Zhu Weikun, a master’s student of urban planning at Tongji University, is part of a team that saw its proposal accepted. Sixty-four teams had their plans approved for implementation.
“I was thrilled when the organizer told us that we will get a chance to implement our design and turn the blueprint into reality,” said Zhu.
The site Zhu and her classmates chose in their renewal plan was the 500-meter stretch beneath the elevated rail of Dabaishu Station on subway Line 3. The area is currently occupied by rail pillars, small stores, parking lots and pockets of greenery.
“There are many abrupt ends on the sidewalk, and people have to walk on the car lane,” said Zhu who visited the site many times to take measurements and observe human activity in the surrounding area. “As such, the first thing we made was to redesign the traffic lane and make the area an unimpeded corridor for people to walk.”
According to the team’s plan, the corridor will be divided into three functional areas. One area will be a sports zone, with exercise and children’s recreational facilities.
The other will be an informal business zone with a small convenience store, benches and boxes for meetings. The third zone will become a park with a themed exhibition on the Shanghai-Woosung railway system.
The idea of turning the underutilized areas beneath bridges and highways into functional spaces is fairly new to Shanghai — the concept was piloted in the city in 2018 when the Shanghai Urban Public Space Design Promotion Center launched a microrenewal project titled “revitalizing space under bridges”.
Wang Mingying, an officer with the promotion center, which recently merged with the Shanghai Urban
Planning and Design Research Institute, said the renovation of such spaces is a tall task because it involves coordination across multiple administrative bodies, including the transport department, environment department and the subdistrict government.
“The pilot was a good start. We are now seeing more and more people paying attention to such areas,” said Wang.
Because of this project, art installations now fill the space under the bridges over Kaixuan Road and Gubei Road.
An animal-themed sports park, comprising two small soccer fields and nine basketball courts under the Middle Ring Overpass on Beidi Road, was unveiled to the public in July.
Many spaces under the bridges across the Suzhou Creek were also renovated and adorned with paintings and lights during the city’s riverside renovation project.
The promotion center, one of the first city bodies to promote the concept of micro-renewal, also highlights good practices at the Shanghai Urban Space Art Season that it has been organizing every two years since 2015.
Last season’s theme was “15-minute community life circle — people’s city” that featured designs for community service facilities and amenities that cater to residents’ needs in living, working, relaxing, studying and elderly care.
“Micro-renewal projects provide opportunities for people to practice local governance. By inviting grassroots participation, the people-centered approach of urban planning can focus more on local needs,” said Wang.
Free-Down Space, formerly an empty air-defense basement in the Hongxian residential neighborhood in Changning district, is one good example of community involvement.
Zhang Huan, a member of the
social organization Big Fish Community Building and Development Center, has been leading this community’s micro-renewal project since 2019.
Last year, the organization turned the space into a multifunctional activity zone of 1,100 square meters. Featuring bright colors, the basement is now partitioned into areas, including a reading room, cafe, children’s room and spaces that host art studios and startup offices.
Zhang Lingdi, a housekeeper who has been living in the neighborhood for nearly 30 years, is among those who have leased a space there — she uses it for Ayi’s Home, a platform for her peers to rest, share job information and organize activities.
“In September, we started a weekly Sunday Shanghainese Corner, where we teach young people the Shanghai dialect,” she said.
Another notable community microrenewal project can be found in the Dongming subdistrict of Pudong where social organization Clover Nature School has been spearheading a campaign to build community gardens in the area of 5 square kilometers since 2020.
Liu Yuelai, a professor at Tongji University who co-founded the organization, said the community gardens can serve as pathways that enhance bonds among people and bolster sustainable community renewal.
Through workshops and consultations, Liu’s team has helped residents to design their own gardens in deserted lots or mismanaged patches of greenery. The district’s residents have currently designed about 20 small gardens.
Commercial developers have also been jumping on the urban-regeneration bandwagon. Among them is AECOM China, an infrastructure consulting firm, which plans to transform an old electrical equipment factory on Wuyi Road into an office space.
The company advised the property
owner to hollow out the first floor stores on the street side for a pedestrian arcade, and open a small pocket square at the entrance of the old Shanghai alleys on the property for public use.
“It may seem like we are taking a step back in the commercial sense, but the people-centric design will increase the popularity of the building and boost both the economic and social value of the property and nearby area,” said Michael Ma, vice-president of economics for AECOM China, adding that as the development of downtown Shanghai becomes saturated, there will be more urban regeneration projects.
Similar projects have already reaped commercial gains. For example, in one project on Yuyuan Road, a store of 9 square meters that was turned into a “public-story wall” has attracted some 2,000 people to share their stories in just two months and significantly increased footfall in the area.
Another example is the 900-meterlong section between Jiangsu Road and Dingxi Road, which has been turned into a leisure space, featuring lawns and flower beds over 130 square meters that families in the area enjoy.
“The city is like a sensitive forest ecosystem — both towering trees and underground microbes play roles, but it is the small units such as retail outlets and cultural facilities that contribute to the diversity and inclusiveness,” said Tong Ming, principal architect at TM Studio, a Shanghai-based architectural office.
“Good micro-urban renovation can bring vigor to a declining environment and drive the social and economic development in its neighborhood,” said Tong.
“We can compare it to traditional acupuncture therapy or minimally invasive surgeries that treat many ‘urban diseases’ in big cities.”