Abstract
As a vital historic neighborhood with an indeterminate large-scale planning scheme, Yingping, located in the city center of Xiamen, China, is struggling with poor livability and growing incoherent private additions and renovations that largely undermine the local historic urban landscape. Inspired by Italian typology- and morphology-led planning techniques, this study explores the possible interpretations and implications of their applications in Yingping to address its interconnected, heterogeneous, and stratified urban fabric and planning problems. The research is developed through a two-pronged multi-layered planning framework. Firstly, from the maintenance perspective, five intervention approaches are grouped, with a specific focus on the leading structural elements of the urban fabric—the arcade streets. Secondly, from the morphological view and through the ecological lens, six characterized areas are identified and classified with respective morphological features and crucial planning problems being faced. This framework provides a strategic thematization of corresponding optimizing strategies and suitable guidelines to direct future governmental actions and to support the self-maintenance of local inhabitants toward sustainable development. The study also presents the possibility that such techniques are applicable to the Chinese context and is expected to inspire further research and practices in China and beyond.
Highlights
Despite the increased focus on urban conservation, many historic areas still face tremendous planning challenges and await suitable strategies
The area is struggling with poor livability and increasing numbers of haphazard and incoherent private additions and renovations that largely undermine the local historic urban landscape
Due to its specific culture of conserving heritage, the Italian tradition of urban conservation is based on long-term theoretical and practical experimentation [2,3,4,5,6,7]
Summary
Despite the increased focus on urban conservation, many historic areas still face tremendous planning challenges and await suitable strategies. Looking more closely at the Italian legacy, typology- and morphology-led planning techniques made a significant methodological contribution to the technical experimentation [12,13,14]. These techniques provide an effective and convincing lens for understanding the urban stratification process and further addressing the interconnected and overlapped heterogeneous physical and social situations, as well as planning challenges [12,13,14,15]. The third section explains the origins and differences of Italian typology- and morphology-led planning techniques and discusses the possible applications to historic quarters in other contexts, like Yingping. The paper ends with an overall discussion and summary of some findings and reflections about the significance and implications of the study, presenting a comparison with the research of Gulangyu Island, together with recommendations for future improvements
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