On The Composition System Of Urban Design Guide Lines From Municipal Level

Since the modern city design theory was introduced into our country, urban design has been playing an increasingly important role in China's urban development and construction. However, there is still a large gap in urban design between China and western developed countries. Along with the advancement of China's urbanization, an increasing number of cities are focusing on the urban space, followed by urban design. The urban design guideline, as one of the achievements for urban design, is also a guide of urban design. It is featured by diversity, multi-discipline and in accordance with the requirements of urban large-scale development. As a result, it has become a concern for the government planning department, urban planners,architects, property developers and the social public.There are no clear composition system of the urban design guideline system. In the process of preparation, lacking of comprehensiveness will lead to differences between theory and practices. Therefore, in recent years researches on urban design guideline composition system are gaining importance.The urban design guideline is the connection between management policy and project design, but also the turning point between ideal construction and practical construction. It has two functions. Firstly, it can carry out complex and abstract urban development strategic policy and form a set of workable guideline. Secondly, it can combine with features among provinces, cities, regions, areas, districts and lands. The "universal" principles of urban design can be “individualized” and adjusted to local conditions to be more targeted and to gain more guiding significance.In short, the urban design guideline is to embody abstract policies, individualize general principles and make them operational and targeted.From the perspective of municipal level, this essay explores the composition system of the urban design guideline. Firstly, from the overview of urban designguidelines the author studies and elaborates three aspects including its birth and development, types and functions, and its framework. Secondly, analysis on the practices of urban design guidelines in developed countries such as the United States,Britain, Japan and Singapore is made. The author then summarizes representative cases of the published urban design guidelines in China and makes a conclusion on the composition system of urban design guidelines from municipal level, which hopefully can play a positive role for the future formulation of the urban design guidelines from the municipal level.