Establishing The Theory Of Beijing Greenway Planning And Design

Greenways are linear open spaces consisting of plants, rivers, mountains and other natural elements, having ecological, recreational and social cultural functions.The first part of this paper introduces the background of greenways appearance from two aspects of the inhabit islands resulting from ecological fragmentation and people’s urgent needs of recreation, elaborates the concept, classification, significance of greenways and analysis the relationship and differences of "Greenbelts","Scenic Byways","Parkways","Heritage Corridors","Ecological Corridors" and "Greenways". Then summarize the course of development of the United States, Europe and China’s greenways theory and found that the concept of greenways appeared in America last century, evolved into the international greenway movement combining the theory of landscape ecology, geography, architecture and other related disciplines and applying into thousands of international greenways constructions, however, China’s idea of greenways could trace to Zhou Dynasty, and China’s world-famous ancient plank way "Cuiyunge" is two thousands earlier than western first greenway "Emerald necklace".The second part of this paper illustrate the suitability of building greenways in Beijing through do researches on ecology, culture and recreation resources of Beijing. Firstly, rich historical and cultural heritage, river and lakes, mountains resources in northwest Beijing is the advantage of greenways planning. Secondly, Beijing’s ecological security patterns provide structural basis and reference for greenways network structure.The core part of this paper is the theory building of Beijing greenway planning and design:(1) This paper derives that Beijing is facing the challenges and opportunities from the development of greenways theory and practice in China and foreign countries and Beijing’s geographical feature, and illustrates the significances of greenways construction in protecting the integrity of the ecological patterns, improving the quality of leisure recreational spaces and protection of cultural heritage system, and rises five principles of the greenway planning: systematic planning, reasonable structure, feasible construction, accessible location and regional culture and so on.(2) This paper divided greenways fit for Beijing into four types:park connection type, mainly to build the connections between city parks and green spaces in built-up area and its surrounding; riparian wetland type, distribution along five major river system to protect and restore Beijing aquatic ecosystem; cultural heritage type, mainly used to connect series of cultural heritage points and to protect the linear heritage corridors; natural ecological type, mainly used to protect wildlife migration corridor. Then this paper integrate the layout of these four type greenways forming a comprehensive greenways network of Beijing.(3) In design level, this paper divides greenway elements into planting, trails, infrastructure, service system, identification system and transport connections points, and establishes a set of practical planning and design method with references and guiding for reality by combining with Beijing geographical and cultural characteristics.The last part of this paper is discussing the important method applied in paper, the final conclusions and domestic greenways campaign in full swing, and looking forwards to the future greenway theory and practice development trends.