Small Intervention & Urban Surgery

We cannot expect the economy to keep high as what we have experienced in the last two decades. Many cities are transforming themselves from the rapid sprawl to the improvement of spatial and social quality. In the past decades, landscape architects have produced a vast amount of homogenous, coarse, and placeless spaces on this planet, especially on the land of China and other developing countries. We have to see the modern landscape design practice have created many fragmented, neglected, and unambiguous places in the city. They are often forgotten gaps or debris between many “symbolic”, “profitable”, or “iconic” spaces. We have to see we are so addictive to be designers of great “dream” projects. We are hands of crazy politicians and wasting billions of taxpayers’ money. We have to see we often have ignorance of local wisdom, power from grass root, and local construction experience. We have to see our values are pendulous: We are chasing most popular forms, materials, and colors from the Internet and magazines but we are so reluctant to make our hands and boots dirty on site. That is, we are very like an outsider or a knight on a white horse. Keeping doing that would finally make us become fast-fashion designers who are selling instant and superficial illusions. In this thesis study, we will explore several types of possibilities: How to revitalize the neglected, valueless, or even dangerous places in the city? How to understand human nature and behavior in a specific context and use the knowledge for a design intervention? On the other hand, how to understand the universal human nature and behavior as another driver of design intervention? How to use small and pristine design interventions to transform a site to a place with Genius Loci? Last, you don’t have to agree on all or some of my extreme opinions. Working with me if you have the same feeling(s) as mine.