| As a result of worldwide urbanization we are transitioning to an age in which the majority of the world's peoples will be living in urban areas; we must recognize and address the fact that the majority of the worlds population will then be living in polluting, environmentally unstable environments. As China and other nations are urbanizing, it will require an effort on the part of urban designers, planners, and landscape architects to accommodate new ecologically sound ideals into the landscape. Much of the advancement in establishing ecologically sound urban living has been developed around the concept of an "Eco-city". The ideals of an Eco-city suggest that in order to preserve quality of life in a sustainable manner, there needs to be balance between access to nature, reduced resource consumption, density management, and human environmental impacts. In the short time that human societies have existed in urban environments, human biology hasn't changed enough to facilitate livelihoods that are severed from natural environments. In order to fulfill the criterion suggested by the tenets of the eco-city, or any ecologically minded urban context, urban residents need to be connected to the natural environment. The innate need for human beings to interact with nature for health and well-being is described by the Biophilia hypothesis. Biophilic urbanism (generated from tenets of the Biophilia Hypothesis) has been developed as a theoretical framework that incorporates concepts of Biophilia into new urban planning and landscape architectural models. Biophilic design facilitates increased physical and physiological health, economic benefits, and overall advantages within cities that have incorporated a variety of natural elements into their built environments. (Beatley 2011).;In support of ecological urban design (eco-cities) and the principles of Biophilic urbanism, this thesis proposes a suggestion of a new urban-landscape vernacular that embraces notions of "distilled nature". The design encompasses a Biophilic pedestrian connection between a metro-stop and the center of the Hongqiao Foreign Trade district in Shanghai, China. The proposed intervention suggests how the tenets of biophilia might be realized in a rapidly transforming, high-density urban environment. |
