New Urbanism Theory And Residential Community Design

With the commercializing of residences and the relocating of some cities to suburbs in China, "new urbanism" is introduced to our country as a new type of designing idea in residential district development. With a view to the presently insufficient understanding of the theory in China, this thesis gives a detailed introduction and systematic analysis to the theory of "new urbanism" from various aspects, and attempts to find an effective method for habitation community designing based on this theory.The thesis takes "urban life" as the clue and "the community of high living quality" as the aim in the research. In chapter one, through the study of previous theories on community planning and the description of the background for the theory's appearance, it probes the historical reasons and sources for the formation of "new urbanism". In chapter two, it gives a deep-going analysis to the theory from the three layers of Region, Neighborhood/District/Corridor, Street/Block/Building and the classification of different types of planning so as to elaborate the programming ideas and designing principles of the theory. In chapter three, it discusses the controversy caused by the theory with the purpose of probing in its merits from the reverse side. Chapter four and five are studies of the practical application of the theory. Through the practical analysis it provides the methods of community planning and norms of actual development guided by the theory, as a consequence, it proposes that the designing based on the principles of Discernable center and edge, Workability, Open-space forming, Mixed-use is a paramount precondition for the creation of "the community of high living quality". Finally, in chapter six, considering the present national conditions, it puts forward the practical strategies for the application of "new urbanism" in our country from the aspects of city, community and designing method.On the basis of the research, this thesis points out that the home-centered living method is the most important factor in influencing the community environment. Therefore, the consideration of humanism is the trend of future community planning. The essence of new urbanism is just to take the human beings as the starting point and preserve the intense and diversiform living circumstances of urban life.