The Regionalism Expressions Within Design Of The Commercial Streets Within Changsha Historical Districts

By analysing current worrying situation on protecting the historical districts, and the weakening regionalism under the globalisation, this thesis raise the urgency and necessity to protect the historical districts and traditional commercial streets, and focus on the design and development of the commercial streets within Changsha historical districts. The analysis and discussions on the theories and models for protecting historical districts in the Chinese and foreign cities, with the current status and issues of Changsha in mind, have provided a solid ground for elaborating the importance, necessity and, the principles and methodological system on the protection of Changsha historical districts. Through the studies on how the historical culture, climate and local environment and custom etc. contributed towards the regional characteristics of Changsha historical districts, the characteristics which are represented in the planning and architectural design and the significant guidance to the modern design have been extracted from these historical districts. Based on the importance of the commercial streets in the historical districts, and the practical difficulties and conflicts between the protections and developments, the author has emphasised that the design of the commercial streets within a historical district, should first of all, follow the basic principles and frameworks of protective developments and design of Changsha's historical districts; then, get on the planning and design by taking both of the characteristics on commercial street design and the differences of the commercial areas themselves into account. With the historical context to uphold traditions, respect for local culture as the presuppositions, following the design concept that combines the modern design elements with regional and historical traditions. Whist emphasising the importance to keep the historical and cultural heritage, at the same time, exploring and carrying forward the economic advantages of the commercial streets, therefore to response the demands from the city's new developments. Using commercial streets design of Pozi Jie, Taiping Jie and Chaozhong Jie, a few of Changsha's historical districts, as the typical examples, the regionalism expressions within the planning and architectural design have been studied and discussed in details. With the experiences gained and lessons learnt, an effective means to protectively develop and design the commercial areas within Changsha's historical districts has been proposed, to display fully the regional cultural characteristics of Changsha, inject a new life to the historical districts, and speed up the progress of regeneration of the old streets, by successful re-image the commercial areas.This thesis has adopted the methodologies of analysis, comparison and summary, applied with the theory and design methods, and the knowledge in economics, sociology, town planning, design and architecture, by raising questions, then analysing and resolving them, studied and explored the protective development and design methodologies, principles and models of the regional characteristics of the commercial streets in Changsha's historical districts in many details...