ARCHITECTURE DEPARTMENT

MASTER OF ARCHITECTURE PROGRAMME

CHINESE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

2010-2011 DESIGN REPORT

NEW MOBILITY HUB IN BEIJING UNDERGROUND SPACE AS A CONNECTOR

SHEKWai Ling, Sophy May 2011

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00

Thesis Statement

01 Background Study

02 Site Analysis

03 Underground Space

04 Design Strategy & Development

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Thesis Statement

The fast urbanization and urban sprawl in Beijing causes problematic conditions in many areas of city. The south-east area is a representative case for this development. To cope with the problem of increased traffic congestion and emission in Beijing, the government has planned to expand the subway system to cover most parts of the city and aiming at a 1km node-to-node walking distance within the 3rd ring road area by 2020, in order to encourage citizens to use public transport rather than automobiles and develop a more sustainable life-style. In addition to the subway system, the government has planned underground networks as an alternative way to ease ground traffic congestion and land use tensions in downtown areas.

Along with the Beijing Government's emphasis on the subway system and underground space development, a new subway station will be built in Nanmofang in the east part of the capital bringing new opportunities to this area, south of the extending CBD.

This thesis attempts to connect an increasingly fragmented urban fabric through the introduction of an underground space network. The underground space network provides a large flexibility to link different destinations directly by the all weather pedestrian connections and helps to reconnect Beijing's urban blocks divided by the large street grid for vehicular traffic. The subway system is used as the backbone to develop underground space for Bei-jing, reconnecting the urban fabric and promoting a more sustainable and convenient lifestyle for citizens.

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6

Essay Background - High Speed Urbanization in China

China is undergoing an unprecedented global urbanization due to the socio-economic development. The urbanization rate of China has risen from 10.6% in 1949 to 45.7% in 2009. In the mean while, the urban morphology of China is transformed in a rapid pace, es-pecially the capital city - Beijing. However, the high-speed urban development caused a chaotic situation of urban form in some ar-eas of Beijing. For the further development, an urban regeneration should be explored in such areas.

Urban Sprawl of Beijing

Beijing is a city that connected and serviced by its ring roads. The concept of the ring and radial system was existed since 1950s. Now, Beijing's ring road system is developed up to the 6th ring road. The 2nd ring road passes through the most centered parts of Beijing. The area inside is almost equivalent to the old city. And the 3rd ring road passes through Beijing's CBD and diplomatic com-munities, the 4th ring road serves as the edge of the city center, the 5th ring road links sub-centers and the 6th ring road connects the satellite towns. Beijing keeps expanding in a radial direction so as to alleviate the pressure of population and social resources. The urban sprawl in Beijing is so-called "pancake model". In the present situation of Bei-jing's urban form, the city center has spilt beyond the 5th ring road in all directions.

Urban Diagnose

In order to alleviate the pressure of population and social resourc-es, Beijing has sprawled itself in an organic pattern driven by the market forces. However, this kind of Market-driven unintentional development could not solve the problems at its root and probably

raises other serious problems, such as traffic congestion. In centre city of Beijing, working places and residential areas are highly centralized but separately. The separation of the working places and residential areas bring a heavy burden on the traffic in particular time and in particular direction. For a better planning, the Beijing government planned to expand the subway system to run through most of the part in Beijing and aimed at 1km node to node walking distance within 3rd ring road by 2020 for the sake of encouraging citizen to use public transport rather than the automobiles and having a more sustainable life-style. Other than the subway system, the government also planned sev-eral underground developments as an alternative way to ease ground traffic congestion, land use tension in downtown area and environmental problems.

South-East area of Beijing

The fast urbanization and urban sprawl caused chaotic presenta-tion of urban form in some city areas of Beijing. The south-east area is one of the most representative cases.

The south-east area is in-between the 3rd ring road and the 4th. ring road, and it is bordered by Jianguo Road in the north and the Jing-Jin-Tang Expressway in the south.

The south-east area is fragmental in its urban space and urban morphology. It is because of the mixture of various urban functions and different land ownerships. This area is mainly structured by the newly-built high-rise buildings near the CBD, the high-rise market housing of the former public housing neighborhoods, the villages in the city enclosed by newly urbanized area, the remaining industrial zone, green belt or other waste lands, and the campus of Beijing University of Technology. Moreover, there is a lack of coordination on the urban scale in the fast urban development.

In the meanwhile, the urban development did not contribute to the creation of comparable urban spaces for the community. Due to the different development in recent years, the whole area reveals the chaotic and disordered urban form.

The potential site - Nanmofang

The potential site is located at the intersection of Xidawang Road and Nanmofang Road in South-East area of Beijing Centre City which is in between the 3rd ring road and 4th ring road. It is near the CBD to the north and Beijing University of Technology (BJUT) to the south.

New planning in Nanmofang

According to the latest infrastructure planning of Beijing, 21 more subway lines including 303 stations will be built before 2020. The municipal government of Beijing advocates expanding the subway system as the skeleton of the city to encourage citizen to travel by public transport. Nanmofang station is one of the new subway stations of subway line 14 which will be completed before 2015. The completion of this new Nanmofang subway station will bring the new opportuni-ties to this area.

The importance of Nanmofang - generic case

The type of Nanmofang station, which is a single node station and allocated at the junction, is a generic case in Beijing. This kind of subway station settlement can be easily found in different places. Up until now, there is 86% of this kind of subway station in Beijing and it will be more after the new planning and construction on sub-way system which will completed by 2020. They are usually split up into 4 pieces by the busy traffic and not well connected with each other. The surrounded urban form is presented in a fragmented and chaotic way. In other words, coping with the situation of Nanmofang

is very useful in harmonizing the urban morphology of the whole Beijing.

Underground Space

Trend and facts of underground space

Along with the city's fast urban development, the Central City of Beijing becomes over centralized and buildings are profoundly denser and denser. The usable ground lands are almost came to saturation in the central part. In order to match with the urban de-velopment, the use and exploitation of the underground space in Beijing becomes a trend and has entered a phase of fast paced development.

The underground space planning in Beijing is based on the Central district. Using subway system as a backbone and traffic nodes as a hub, in order to release more spaces for urban development and transfer parts of urban functions from the ground to underground. So that more ground spaces are freed as public open spaces and integrated by the underground development system.

According to the Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design, Beijing has planned 17 areas, including Central Business District (CBD), for the subterranean developments as an alterna-tive way other than the disordered sprawl to ease the urban grow-ing pains. By 2020, Beijing will become an "underground town" by establishing 90 million square meters of subterranean space, with per capita underground space reaching five square meters in the city. About 30% of the newly developed underground spaces are parking lots, another 30% are underground traffic services, and the remaining parts are used for commercial and cultural purposes. Also, private developers are encouraged to join the underground investment with Beijing Municipal Government.

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Case Study Underground City, Montreal

Background of being an underground city

Montreal is the second large city in Canada with 380 km2 urban areas and 3.4 million populations. Montreal's Underground City is the set of interconnected complexes in the downtown of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the largest scale underground city in the world.

Owing to the economic growth and urbanization, the downtown of Montreal is quite urbanized and full of high-rise buildings. Besides, the climate in Montreal is muggy in summer with the highest tem-perature of 32 °C and frigid in winter with the lowest temperature of -20 C. Under this climate condition, the outdoor activities are always constrained. Therefore, the underground spaces linked with different high-rise buildings were formed and integrated with the subway system. The underground spaces can provide a comfort-able place for different types of activities throughout the whole year. For this reason, it attracts a large number of pedestrians who want to escape from the extreme weather.

The development history

The development of Montreal's undergroLind city is started from the redevelopment planning of Place Ville-Marie by I.M.Pei in 1954. In 1965, 0.5 million m2 underground space was developed and the early underground city was formed. The main functions of the underground spaces are subway station, underground plaza, un-derground parking and inter-link corridor of different development. Driven by the Montreal world expo in 1967 and Olympic Game in 1976 the urban construction and redevelopment of Montreal was undergone a fast paced development. Along with the newly con-structed subway line in 1966 the utilization and exploitation of underground space was expanded a bit further and finally formed three underground complexes during 1980's. From 1990 to 1995 a

new concept of “Multi-functional underground complex" was appeared. Then, those underground complexes were upgraded into the multi-functional underground complexes. A large amount of underground corridors were built to link and integrate the whole underground space network during 2000. Those corridors interconnected different under-ground complex and formed a huge underground city.

Features of Montreal's underground city

Firstly, the Montreal's underground city is a large-scale development. It is the largest scale underground city in the world. The area that the underground city covered reaches 36 km2 and it is about 1/10 of total urban area, linking 5 urban districts of Montreal. The whole networks have around 200 transits to the ground. So, it has a convenient con-nection between ground and underground.

Secondly, different compositions of the underground city are strongly interconnected. The underground pedestrian network links all the un-derground spaces in 5 urban districts of Montreal to form an under-ground complex.

What is more, there is no clear center in the underground city. Differ-ent types of underground spaces were built in the city. Each of them has their own features. Some people may think that the lack of a clear center is the demerit of Montreal. But actually, the whole underground complex is the center of the city.

The Meaning to Beijing's Underground Space

Form the master planning of Beijing, there are a large amount of nodes that have the potential to form the underground complex along with the subway system. With the further development of Beijing, those un-derground spaces at the nodes can be developed into a center and links with other different nodes. And finally form a well-interconnected underground city.

Montreal's underground city is a successful case for how to utilize and exploit of underground spaces. It is predicting the trend of un-derground space's development for Beijing. For a better planning on underground space, Beijing should learn from the Montreal's case. For example, when planning and designing for the under-ground spaces, the linkage between different nodes should be well considered for the future and relevant space should be reserved.

Design strategy

Hypothesis

Along with the urban development in Beijing, there are more and more automobiles in used on the road. The increasing usage of automobiles in recent years caused serious congestion in many places in Beijing, especially the city center. To alleviate the conges-tion problem, more roads are built to support the citizen's needs. The roads in Beijing become wider and more in terms of quantity.

However, the expansion of road traffic creates another problem. The traffic divides many areas into pieces and because of the gi-ant scale of the road, many areas in Beijing are quite fragmented and they are not user friendly to pedestrian at all. In some cases, pedestrian find difficulty in crossing the huge traffic to the opposite side. When it comes to the extreme weather season, it is more dif-ficult for people to stay outside for long period. Moreover, because of the large street block division, the permeability to the inter-block is usually quite low. So, there is a disconnection between the main road and the inter-block parts.

Besides the fragmentation of the area, the parking issue is also one of the concerned problems. Parking is everywhere in Beijing and this is probably related to their practice and habits. They park in front of shops, in the middle of pedestrian path, along the street, in the unused land, etc. The not-well-organized parking occupies the potential public spaces. The people could hardly find an enjoyable

public space in the community as most of them are occupied by the parking. And this is directly linked to the living quality of the people.

Opportunities

Nanmofang station is one of the new subway stations of subway line 14 in Beijing, which will be completed before 2015. The com-pletion of this new Nanmofang subway station will bring the new opportunities to this area.

The new subway station is located at the center of Nangmofang. As the center of this area, the subway station is re-connecting the four separated corner at the subterranean level. The network pen-etrates into the community starting from the subway station and working in both above ground and underground level. The walking experience can be enhanced during all season by introducing the 3 dimensional network.

In the mean while, some of the programs, like parking space, can be introduced to the underground level so that more space at ground level can be freed to be the enjoyable public open space. Hence, improving the living quality of the people.

As the new subway station at the cross-junction is the generic de-velopment case of Beijing, therefore, dealing with the case in Nan-mofang is very helpful for the whole Beijing.

Design Concept - Networking

The concept of my design is to form a 3 dimensional network sys-tem starting from the subway station, working at both underground and above ground level and growing gradually into the communi-ties. The network system is a continuous webs that working to-gether with the existing surroundings.

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Types of connection and spaces with the existing, so that you do not have to remove all buildings.

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The network system is consisted of different elements, including nodes, connections, solid volumes and void. In the network system, there creates a node wherever the connections meet together. The more connections meet in a point the larger the node is. Because of the more connections meet together and larger space created, there will have more pedestrian flow as well.

Through using different combination of elements, different kind of space could be created. For instance, the covered walkway, the sunken plaza, the semi public open space and public open space, enclosed indoor space, etc. The dimension of space is depends on the programme and activities' needs.

Time of staying

People will stay in different elements in the network depends on how long they want to stay. The connection parts are mostly the circulation and pedestrian usually are not stay for long. The nodes are the staying point along the pedestrian walkway. The larger the nodes are, the longer the people would prefer to stay. The open spaces rounded by the web are the place that people stay longest.

Imagine two people meet each other in a coincident along the pe-destrian walkway. They will stop there and just say hello then leave if they are in a hurry. Or they will go to the node or the open spaces enclosed by the network and continue chatting if they have more time and want to stay a bit longer. So, in different spaces, the time of people staying is different.

Advantages

The network system has its own advantages. Firstly, it has the large flexibility. The size and dimension of the web can be easily adjusted through stretching along the sides. It allows stretching to integrate

Secondly, it provides a huge convenience to the local community and increase the permeability to the inter block. The network sys-tem can provide short cut and also helps people to across the busy traffic easier through using the underground network. It penetrates into the local community and links different destinations directly through the both underground and aboveground network, like north to the CBD and south to the JUT. •

Moreover, the all weather-covered walkway could protect people from the extreme weather. The climate in Beijing is muggy in sum-mer with the highest temperature of 40 °C and frigid in winter with the lowest temperature of-10 °C. Under this climate condition, the outdoor activities are always constrained. Therefore, the under-ground spaces can provide a comfortable place for different types of activities throughout the whole year. For this reason, I believe it can attract a large number of pedestrians who want to escape from the extreme weather.

Besides, developing the underground network is also making well use of the land resources. As we all know, along with the urbani-zation, the land resources are quite in tense. The using of under-ground space is opening another window for the future develop-ment.

Phases - Growing network

The network system is proposed in different phases. There are 4 phases in total. It starts from the left top corner, then right top, right bottom and left bottom corner. Each phase will last for 5 years and it will be finished in 2030 at the end. The system is a growing net-work that varies in time and varies with the surroundings.

Challenges of underground spaces - natural lighting In spite of the advantages of having the underground space, the

lighting issue is one of the challenges. In most of people's mind, they think the underground space is narrow and cramped, no natu-ral lighting. Some people may also think underground space is less safe than the ground level.

To remove the mistaken of people's mind, natural lighting should be bring into the underground space. In my design, there are holes vary in size to let the natural sunlight to go inside to the covered space or underground space. Also, there are several sunken pla-zas at the subterranean level.

Public spaces and Activities

There are various programme inside the network system.

Car parking and bike parking are located at the underground level. On one hand, more land can be freed for the enjoyable public open space. On the other hand, covered parking space can protect the cars and bike from the rain and have the higher security level than before. Bike renting and bike repairing shop are also located at the underground level. People can travel by subway to Nanmofang and rent a bike to go somewhere else or they can stop their bike just next to the subway station and use subway to go somewhere else instead of using the automobiles. This kind of new habit will be the trend in the future and it is a more sustainable lifestyle.

Besides, retails are spread out in the whole network. Shopping center, electronic market, commercial buildings and cultural & art center will be built to support the growing community. All the new buildings will link to the subway station at the underground level to complete the continuous network system.

Conclusion

This thesis attempts to connect an increasingly fragmented urban fabric, in south-east area of Beijing - Nanmofang, through the in-troduction of a 3 dimensional network system. The underground space network is working together with the above ground net-work. The network system provides a large flexibility to link differ-ent destinations directly by the all weather pedestrian connections and helps to reconnect Beijing's urban blocks divided by the large street grid for vehicular traffic. The subway system is used as the backbone to develop underground space for Beijing, reconnecting the urban fabric and promoting a more sustainable and convenient lifestyle for citizens.

This thesis using Nanmofang as a starting point for this kind of development as it is a generic case of Beijing. And try to use the same logic to apply the network system in different places in Beijing which have the similar urban situation. .

Large performance areas are covered but still natural lighting is introduced. It has a large capacity for people during the special events, performance show or music event can be held in such ar-eas. For the normal day, it allows informal activities happens, like lingering, gathering, doing Tai Chi, playing chess, etc.

The whole network provides a lot of public open space for residents and travelers to enjoy. Different size of public open space is located on different level and in-between the neighborhood.

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High Speed Urbanization in China

Urban i za t i on By P rov ince

Percent of Urban (2005)

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p a 50 to 75%

[ • 40 to 49.9%

30 to 39,9%

under 30%

map scale 1: 40.000,000

Tianjin Beijing

China is undergoing an unprecedented global urbanization due to the socio-economic development. Beijing is one of the most urbanized city in China in which over 75% of and was urbanized

In an overall view, the urban morphology of China is trans-formed in a rapid pace, especially the capital city Beijing. However, the high-speed urban development caused a chaotic situation of urban form in some areas of Beijing. For the fur-ther development, an urban regeneration should be explored in such areas.

Shanghai

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Urban Sprawl Footprint of Beijing

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Urban

Traffic in Beijing

Licensed Automobile Drivers numbers in Beijning (2000-2010) 6 million

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POD > BOD > TOD > COD

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Transit oriented development strategy relies on the use of public mass transit system as the community mobilizer. Such development attempts to counter road congestion and sustainable issue from automobile oriented cities.

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What is TOD

"A transit-oriented development (TOD) is a mixed-use residential or commercial area designed to maximize access to public transport, and often incorporates features to encourage transit ridership•” Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development

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South-East Area of Beijing

The fast urbanization and urban sprawl caused chaotic presenta-tion of urban form in some city areas of Beijing. The south-east area is one of the most representative cases.

The south-east area is fragmental in its urban space and urban morphology. It is because of the mixture of various urban functions and different land ownerships. Also, there is a lack of coordination on the urban scale in the fast urban development. Furthermore, the urban development did not contribute to the creation of comparable urban spaces for the community.

23

Urban Segregation Urban Zoning and Land Use

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This area is charaterized by a variation of different urban structures.

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Private Ownership State Ownership

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Land Ownership Building Height Social Map

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Opportunities

In present situation, Jin-song Subway station is the closest station to Nanmofang. The dis-tance between Jinsong and Nanmofang is over 1 km.

In 2015 a new subway station will be built in Nanmofang. The new subway staion will bring convenient to the local community.

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O Normal Node • Transfer Node Nanmofang Station - Generic Case of Beijing j 33

03 Underground Space

Site

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Underground space in suburb an

Underground development Axis

Underground development Ring

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Use subway system as a backbone and traffic nodes as a hub to develop the under-ground space for Bei-jing. 35

Along with the city's fast urban development, the Central City of Beijing becomes over centralized and buildings are profoundly denser and denser. The usable ground lands are almost came to saturation in the central part. In order to match with the urban de-velopment, the use and exploitation of the underground space in Beijing becomes a trend and has entered a phase of fast paced development.

The underground space planning in Beijing is based on the Central district. Using subway system as a backbone and traffic nodes as a hub, in order to release more spaces for urban development and transfer parts of urban functions from the ground to underground. So that more ground spaces are freed as public open spaces and integrated by the underground development system.

According to the Beijing Municipal Institute of City Planning and Design, Beijing has planned 17 areas, including Central Business District (CBD), for the subterranean developments as an alterna-tive way other than the disordered sprawl to ease the urban grow-ing pains. By 2020, Beijing will become an "underground town" by establishing 90 million square meters of subterranean space, with per capita underground space reaching five square meters in the city. About 30% of the newly developed underground spaces are parking lots, another 30% are underground traffic services, and the remaining parts are used for commercial and cultural purposes. Also, private developers are encouraged to join the underground investment with Beijing Municipal Government.

However, until now, there are no related rules about utilizing and exploiting the underground space.

Underground Space Beijng Underground Space Utilization Planning (2004-2020)

Trend and facts of underground space

expaodmg area of CBD

Beijing's CBD

36

" l ^ h u i h e North Rd

0.2 0.4 0.8 .6 m

For the expansion of CBD, the underground development of CBD is us-ing subway system as a backbone and traffic nodes as a hub to form the underground network.

In the underground network, the first basement is mainly designed as pedestrain walkways and combined with commercial. The second base-ment is mainly parking area. And under these 2 layers, there is the sub-way system.

Ground Level Public Open Space Transit exit

Underground Level Pedestrain Network Commercial Parking

Underground Level Subway System

m i r m ^ f ^

M o l l s

37

CBD

Underground Driveway

Subway System

Pedestrian network at 1st Level

Underground Space

Commercial District Pedestrian network and Commercial at 1 St Level

Subway System

Parking at 2nd Level

Cultural and Recreational District Commercial at 1st and 2nd Level Subway System Parking

Transportat ion Hub Parking Subway System PTI

Nanmofang

Node

Upper Level Station

Lower Level Station

Road on Ground

Pedestrian Network and Commercial at 1 St Level

Space for Underground Development in Beijing

38 More efficient to develope underground space within -30m

Nanmofang- Present Situation

Use underground space as a Connector

39

Subway System as Backbone Node as a Hub

unqergrouno ’ c o n n e c t

into 1

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Challenges of Underground Space Orientation and Safety Women that in the middle feels fear in underground because of

the disorientation. Natural lighting and Ventilation

Accessibility and Extreme Weather Activities

40

Case study- Underground City, Montreal

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Background of being an underground city

Montreal is the second large city in Canada with 380 km^ urban areas and 3.4 million populations. Montreal's Un-derground City is the set of interconnected complexes in the downtown of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is the larg-est scale underground city in the world.

Owing to the economic growth 3nd urbanization, the downtown of Montreal is quite urbanized and full of high-rise buildings. Besides, the climate in Montreal is muggy in summer with the highest temperature of 32 °C and frigid in winter with the lowest temperature of -20 °C. Under this climate condition, the outdoor activities are always con-strained. Therefore, the underground spaces linked with different high-rise buildings were formed and integrated with the subway system. The underground spaces can provide a comfortable place for different types of activities throughout the whole year. For this reason, it attracts a large number of pedestrians who want to escape from the extreme weather.

The development history

The development of Montreal's underground city is start-ed from the redevelopment planning of Place Ville-Marie by I.M.Pei in 1954. In 1965, 0.5 million m^ underground space was developed and the early underground city was formed. The main functions of the undergrourid spaces are subway station, underground plaza, underground parking and inter-link corridor of different development.

Driven by the Montreal world expo in 1967 and Olympic Game in 1976, the urban construction and redevelopment of Montreal was undergone a fast paced development. Along with the newly constructed subway line in 1966, the utilization and exploitation of underground space was ex-panded a bit further and finally formed three underground complexes during 1980's. From 1990 to 1995, a new concept of “Multi-functional underground complex" was appeared, Then, those underground complexes were up-graded into the multi-functional underground complexes. A large amount of underground corridors were built to link

and integrate the whole underground space network dur-ing 2000. Those corridors interconnected different under-ground complex and formed a huge underground city.

Features of Montreal's underground city

Firstly the Montreal's underground city is a large-scale development. It is the largest scale underground city in the world. The area that the underground city covered reach-es 36 km^ and it is about 1/10 of total urban area, linking 5 urban districts of Montreal. The whole networks have around 200 transits to the ground. So, it has a convenient connection between ground and underground.

Secondly, different compositions of the underground city are strongly interconnected. The underground pedestrian network links all the underground spaces in 5 urban dis-tricts of Montreal to form an underground complex.

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Underground network of Montreal

Linkage with public open space

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A v»

Features • Orientation and Natural Lighting

Use Atrium, Skylight and Sunken Plaza widely • to create a center of place, in order to provide the sense of directions

• to bring natural sun light into the interior deep down to the underground area

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• Accessibility and Extreme Weather

Connection from Underground to Ground Direct connection to the indoor • Linking different buildings through underground network

• Activities are not affected by extreme weather

Atrium

Connection to the outdoor • Pedestrian need to go outside before they go into indoor

• Not convenient during extreme weather

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s a i s

3 Atrium

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• Exterior access points

There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city

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Exterior Access Points to Under^ ....….

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Potential for developing Underground Space in Beijing

• Extreme weather • Land tension in central district • The expanding subway system • Government underground planning

Temperature

Precipitation

Montreal

Highest: 32 X Lowest: -20 °C

Snowfall during winter Rainfall throughout the year 980 mm in whole year

Beijing

Highest: 40 C Lowest: -10 °C

Snowfall during winter Rainfall throughout the year 571.8 mm in whole year

Use of Atrium, Skylight and Sunken Plaza Create a center of place and bring natural sun light in

natural day light

Atrium and Skylight

natural day light

Sunken Plaza

3-dimensional layered underground network Separate different function into different layers to avoid disorder

Public Open Space

Pedestrian Network and Commercial

Parking

Subway System

Use different layers for different function to create a 3-dimen-

sional network. 47

04

& Development

Hypothesis Opportunities

Along with the urban development in Beijing, there are more and more automobiles in used on the road. The increasing usage of automobiles in recent years caused serious congestion in many places in Beijing, especially the city center. To alleviate the conges-tion problem, more roads are built to support the citizen's needs. The roads in Beijing become wider and more in terms of quantity.

However, the expansion of road traffic creates another problem. The traffic divides many areas into pieces and because of the gi-ant scale of the road, many areas in Beijing are quite fragmented and they are not user friendly to pedestrian at ail. In some cases, pedestrian find difficulty in crossing the huge traffic to the opposite side. When it comes to the extreme weather season, it is more dif-ficult for people to stay outside for long period. Moreover, because of the large street block division, the permeability to the inter-block is usually quite low. So, there is a disconnection between the main road and the inter-block parts.

Besides the fragmentation of the area, the parking issue is also one of the concerned problems. Parking is everywhere in Beijing and this is probably related to their practice and habits. They park in front of shops, in the middle of pedestrian path, along the street, in the unused land, etc. The not-well-organized parking occupies the potential public spaces. The people could hardly find an enjoyable public space in the community as most of them are occupied by the parking. And this is directly linked to the living quality of the people.

Nanmofang station is one of the new subway stations of subway line 14 in Beijing, which will be completed before 2015. The com-pletion of this new Nanmofang subway station will bring the new opportunities to this area.

The new subway station is located at the center of Nangmofang. As the center of this area, the subway station is re-connecting the four separated corner at the subterranean level. The network pen-etrates into the community starting from the subway station and working in both above ground and underground level. The walking experience can be enhanced during all season by introducing the 3 dimensional network.

In the mean while, some of the programs, like parking space, can be introduced to the underground level so that more space at ground level can be freed to be the enjoyable public open space. Hence, improving the living quality of the people.

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Hypothesis

More Cars

_

Wider Road

More Road

— — — ^

More Fragmented

& • i i H

•BBSS!! Low Permeability

\ to Inter-Block

Opportunities

New Subway Station

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_ » _

Center

As a Connector

- _

• •

Streetscape

Enhance walking \ experience

Parking Everywhere

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aSi!!! Occupy Public ^

Space

— — —

Less Enjoyable Public Space

• • Living Quality

Growing Network

Stronger Connection to Inter-Block /

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———• I

More Enjoyable Public Space

Living Quality

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covered walkway sunken plaza 52

semi-open public space

public open space

Station Dimension • 20m X 100m

Convenience • Create Short Cut Destination • Linkage • Exit to the Ground Level

linear path junction gathering space

The more connections, the larger the nodes are.

Types of Spaces

Pedestrian • Strollers • Kids • Elderly and Handicap • Taxi

Car Rent • Zip Car / Mobility

Bike • Parking • Rent • Workshop I repair

Design Concept - Networking nodes + connection = network network expansion

Types of Connections Design Parameter

Flexibility & Permeability

network + infill (solid or void)

4

allow stretching to Integrate with the existing increase the accessibility to the inter-block Leading the directions

Growing Network

- —

Generic Huge Cross Junction Smaller Path and Alley Pedestrian Web 53

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Special Study

Existinq Condition Proposed Condition

” J : . : : : : % , Main Street & Entrance

M 56 Underground Bike Parking rhderground Bike Parking with natural lighting

Public Spaces

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Section

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