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Beijing's New Urban Countryside – Designing with

Complexity and Strategic Landscape PlanningAntje Stokman

a , Sabine Rabe

a & Stefanie Ruff

a

a Faculty of Architecture and Landscape Sciences , Leibniz University Hanover

Published online: 01 Feb 2012.

To cite this article: Antje Stokman , Sabine Rabe & Stefanie Ruff (2008) Beijing's New Urban Countryside –

Designing with Complexity and Strategic Landscape Planning, Journal of Landscape Architecture, 3:2, 30-45, DOI:

10.1080/18626033.2008.9723402

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http:///reader/full/jola-journal-on-landscape-architecture-volume-3-issue-2-2008-doi-1010802f18626033200897234… 2/1730 Jo urn al of La nds ca pe Arc hi te ct ure / aut umn 200 8

Antje Stokman, Sa bine Rabe, Stefanie RuffFcuty of achitectue n lncpe science, leibniz Univeity Hnove

Beijing’ New Ubn Countyie – deigning withCompexity n sttegic lncpe Pnning

Abstract

One of the key challenges facing sustainable urban and landscape design is

the land-use management of the rural-urban fringe, a dynamic area where

a range of urban and rural uses collide. By examining the present situation

of one of the world’s most dynamic fringes, the planned second green belt

of Beijing, it becomes clear that rapid land-use change processes are closely

connected to the adaptive and inventive connections between people and

the land. Thus a new management system leading to sustainable develop-

ment and design of the green belt can only be achieved by designing new

ways of interaction between the different actors and the land. During a Si-

no-German workshop seeking deeper understanding of land-use patterns

and processes, different scenarios for the future development of Beijing’s

urban countryside were developed and discussed.

Rural-urban Fringe Landscapes / Green Belt Policies / Multi -func tiona l Des ign / Bei jing

Introduction

Evolving patterns of Beijing’s urban landscapes

Maps of Beijing cannot be amended fast enough, and master plans for its

development always lag behind the realities on the ground. Beijing is one

of the most dynamic and rapidly developing cities in the world. Within

three decades, China’s open door policy has stimulated economic progress

and urban development of unrivalled speed and dimensions. Since 1981,

350 million Chinese have migrated from rural areas to the cities, espe-

cially those on the east coast. To keep growth under control, the Capital

Planning Commission of Beijing has been trying to achieve a well-ordered

layout of urban expansion by applying masterplanning and green belt

concepts since 1953, shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic

of China. However, when observing Beijing’s contemporary urban land-

scapes on the urban fringe, one can hardly believe that there have been

any attempts to apply physical urban plans, as the actual dimensions and

patterns of urban growth are obviously not a result of planning – apartfrom the clear system of ring roads.

Taking an area on the fringe of Beijing as a case study, this paper dis-

cusses the distinctive landscape morphological patterns resulting from lo-

cal interactions between urban and rural land uses, forming a new kind of

vernacular landscape. By using research-based approaches of mapping to

analyse, organise, and present complex interrelationships, this study re-

interprets the role of design in strategically linking spatial landscape pat-

terns to social dynamics. It reads and interprets different strategies and

adaptations to local conditions as a self-organising system in which the

basic elements – the existing rural villages and land parcels – are devel-

oped into various land uses. Describing the transition rules that affect

the change of individual land parcels creates an argument that we need tofind new ways of dealing with the complexity, speed and unpredictabili-

ty of a megacity’s urban growth and landscape change. In the worldwide

process of extremely rapid urban development, landscape architects have

to address and make use of contemporary physical and social practices,

meeting local needs by designing landscapes for survival .


http:///reader/full/jola-journal-on-landscape-architecture-volume-3-issue-2-2008-doi-1010802f18626033200897234… 3/17 Jo urn al of La nds cap e A rc hit ec tur e / a utu mn 20 0

Emerging versus planned urban landscapes

The emerging phenomenon of a new type of complex urban landscape onthe fringe of Asian mega-cities has been described by numerous schol-

ars ( Yoko hari et al. 200 0; Frie dman 2005 , R ead 200 5 ). Most of them are re-

ferring to Ginsburg (Ginsburg 1990) and McGee ( McGe e 19 91) as the first

to describe the special characteristics of ‘rural urbanisation’ or ‘rurban-

isation’ in Indonesia and other Asian countries. The spatial characteris-

tics of this kind of urban landscape, although related to the phenomenon

termed ‘Zwischenstadt’ (Sieverts 1997 ) or ‘Splintering Urbanism’ (Gra-

ham and Marvin 2002) in Western cities, are considered distinctively Asian.

They are characterised by an intense and seemingly chaotic mixture of

different micro-scaled agricultural and non-agricultural land uses that

can be found in most of today’s well-developed economic regions, espe-

cially around the central cities and stretching along infrastructure corri-dors between larger city cores. Generated from dynamic relations, these

territories are the physical expressions of social processes and economic

flows, ordered as a diverse patchwork of parallel operations. They rest on

an emergent dynamic of multiple interrelated actors with individual mo-

tives, operating in modular ways in an open-ended process (Fig. 1).

These kinds of self-organizing and complex urban landscapes are typ-

ical of chaotic land use by modern urban and landscape planning, as the

expression of unorganised and unpredictable urban sprawl. The concept

of clearly separating urban areas from surrounding rural areas is a funda-

mental concept of modern Western urban planning theory as adapted by

most Asian countries ( Yokoha ri et al. 20 00). The Western concept of use planning system by zoning was introduced to guide urban expa

by clearly separating designated urbanisation promotion areas fro

rounding urbanisation control areas. As the cities grew and their

structure became more and more dense, in the early days of the m

planning movement planners initially used urban parks and green

spaces within the urbanisation promotion areas as recreation and

health amenities. As cities expanded even further, planners promot

creation of green open spaces, preferably in the shape of ‘green belt

rounding the urbanisation promotion areas, to restrict the disorder

pansion of urban areas into surrounding rural landscapes. This mo

land use and greenspace planning has long been applied in Europ

the United States, and subsequently adopted by Asian countries ining China and the city of Beijing.

Beijing’s master planning overtaken by reality

Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China i n 194

jing has become one of the largest and most rapidly developing ci

the world. It is hard to believe that in the preceding 500 years the ci

seen hardly any dramatic change to its urban outline and main f

work, with the urban built up area covering around 62.5 km2 fro

Ming Dynasty around 1420 (Gan 199:359) to the foundation of the Pe

Republic (Deng et. al. 2004:227 ). Since then, fast population growth a

Figure 1 Location of the Floodscape projects(NW Europe section of Interreg III shaded)

Figure 1 Contrasting, interesting and confusing patterns of Beijing’s urban fringe inCuigezhuang County – a prototype territory of self-organising and complex urbanlandscapes situated in the projected second green belt of Beijing.

agriculture company

urban street village palais de fortune

construction workers

art exhibition space

new villagecontriction sites

electricitydistribution

drinkingdrinking water golf course

traditionalvillage superhighway densified village

farming entertainment

fish ponds

transport home orchard billiard parlour



4th and 5th ring road – seem more fantasy than reality. Confronted with

the danger of losing the extension of the second green belt and consider-

ing the serious environmental impacts of urbanisation, the planners didnot give up: They invented an even larger green belt plan, which has been

pursued by the municipal government of Beijing since 2002 (Ouyang and

Wang 2002). The revised second green belt is composed of a reduced inner

plus an additional outer green belt, located mainly between the fifth and

sixth ring roads with an average width of 10 km but not defined by exact

borders. According to the study, about 40% of this area is already built on

– and this ratio should not be exceeded. At least 60% of the land needs to

be reserved for ‘green cover’ with at least 70% of the total ‘green elements’

being forests (Ouyang and Wang 2002) (Fig. 3).

However, while the planners are busying themselves with plans and

calculations, outside the remit of official planning within the designated

new green belt area the city is evolving according to its own rules. Urbanexpansion does not follow an overall planned vision but is driven by un-

related governmental or politically motivated actions and by private eco-

nomic activities and speculation. There are not enough resources to devise

and implement regulatory policies and tools to control the pace of devel-

opment. Conventional masterplanning is unable to address uncertainty,

as its assumptions and strategies are too rigid to adapt to fast-changing

and unpredictable external factors. With every solution the planners de-

velop, the urban frontiers appear to be less designed and more evolved.

Bei jin g' Ne w U bn Cou nt yi e a. stokmn, s. rbe & s. ruff

rapid increase of housing and economic activities have expanded the in-

ner city’s built up area to cover more than 700 km2 with a typical expan-

sion pattern following the concentric ring roads (Li et al. 2005:1). While thesecond ring road on the land of the former city wall was built in the 1980s

and the third ring road in the 1990s, since then three more ring roads have

been completed, with the 6th ring road comprising around 130 km of ex-

pressway some 15 - 20 km from central Beijing (Fig. 2 ).

Faced with the extreme pressure of urban growth, since the founda-

tion of the People's Republic of China Beiji ng has also applied the above-

mentioned planning models to guide and structure its urban expansion.

After the f irst concept o f the 1950s to intro duce a green belt around the

old city on the land of its ancient city wall was preempted by construction

of the second ring road, the concept of a second green belt to separate the

central city from the surrounding development of new outskirt districts

has been put forward. The ‘Master Plan Scheme on Construction of Bei- jing City’ from 1 982, which was meant to guide urban development un-

til the millennium and limit the population to 10 million by 2000, first

introduced this idea. However, the population had already reached 10.86

million in 1990, overrunning much of the designated green belt land.

The revised masterplans for Beijing in 1993 and 2004 reduced but still de-

fined the area of the second green belt. Looking at the current state of Be-

ijing, although there have been more than 50 years of masterplanning,

apart from the definite ring road system the urban and landscape struc-

ture seems to lack any overall concept. The planned main elements – ten

satellite towns separated from the urban c ore by a green belt within the

* * *

City Area, 1992 City Area, 1988City Area, 1975

**

City Area, 1996

City Area, 2002

Figure 2 Rapid expansion of Beijing’s urban area andring shaped infrastructure system from 1975 to 2002(Source: Master Plan of Beijing 2002 – 2020)



Realities – spati al impacts of urbanisat ion p rocesses on Beijing’s fring e

Seen from the perspective of traditional land-use planning and regula-

tion, the current landscape of Beijing’s urban fringe may seem alien and

over-complex. The discipline of landscape architecture, however, engag-

es with complex relationships of landscape patterns and processes, rec-

ognizing ecosystems as diverse, complex and self-organizing lifeworlds.

It has developed useful strategic models and techniques for both under-

standing and designing within the complex circumstances of given sites.Therefore, from the perspective of landscape architecture a joint Sino-Ger-

man expert and student workshop was organised by Peking University

and Leibniz University Hannover. Taking the existing proposal for a new

masterplan of an area in the northeast of Beijing’s rural-urban fringe as

a starting point, new methodologies of strategic landscape planning and

design were developed during the workshop and discussed with invited

experts from Germany and China. Instead of transforming the site to ac -

commodate the two-dimensional forms and fixed spatial compositions

of the existing proposal, new ways were to be found to address the place’s

qualities of life and space with regard to future potential, weaving togeth-

er its multiple economic, social, environmental and aesthetic dimensions.

This approach implies a shift in design and planning methodology to-wards devoting more effort to site research and investigation of the forces

behind the making of this landscape.

By conducting field studies and on-site research on the rural-urban

fringe of Beijing, the different forces and the resulting landscape patterns

were analysed, interpreted and made visible by the method of mapping.

“Avoiding the failure of universalist approaches toward master-planning

and the imposition of state-controlled schemes, the unfolding agency of

mapping may allow designers and planners not only to see certain possi-

bilities in the complexity and contradiction of what already exists but also

to actualize that potential.” (Corner 1999:214 ). Exploring and describing the

physical attributes of the existing terrain of Beijing’s urban fron

an expression of various hidden forces, during the workshop we v

ized these interrelationships within many different mappings, wh

called ‘episodes’, thereby implying that a mapping always represent

one version of spatial reality as a result of exploring, selecting, abstr

and relating a chosen set of aspects from the factual observation. Th

pects can include natural processes such as wind directions, hydroand soil conditions, local history and stories, social relationships an

nomic interactions between different groups of people as well as

spatial and economic activities determined by legislative condition

To introduce the rich and varied spectrum of experiences of

landscape conditions within Beijing’s rural-urban fringe, selected

ings from many different episodes collected during the workshop

been aggregated within four general episodes, presented in the foll

section. Grounded on real observations, these episodes are based on

graphic selection and schematisation. For each episode, based on de

ing both the spatial and aesthetic qualities within plan and sectio

jections of a ‘model site’ enriched by photos from typical situation

underlying socio-economic processes and interactions shaping thevisually depicted. Different stakeholders with different backgroun

motivations are introduced, creating different social networks th

tribute and use the existing resources in different ways. Thus the fo

isodes conceptualize the fringe landscape as a self-organising syst

which the basic elements, the villages and land parcels, are develope

various land uses. Each episode, however, is a mere snapshot of a s

constant flux, with the spatial qualities we see today being partly

pression of a long history, serving as a departure point and framewo

different ways of transformation towards the future.

S

S

S

S

S

S

S

S

S

S

C

C

C C

C

C C

C

C

C Innercity embedding th

Area of10 satellitetowns

OuterCity area withcou

Plannedarea ofinner grebetween4thand 5thring

Area ofoutergreen belt between5thand 6thring

MunicipalityofBeijing

Roads

Figure 3: Planned city and green belt structure of Beijing(Source: Master Plan of Beijing 2002 – 2020)



Farmer communities homeland

The first episode (Fig. 4 ) describes a contemporary condition that, of the

four following episodes, bears most resemblance to the original state of vil-

lages around Beijing; the farmer communities homeland, although it con-

tinues to exist, can be seen as the original condition from which the other

episodes of urban villages with their manifold facets have evolved.

The traditional Chinese village is very homogeneous. This is equally

true of its physical appearance and its inhabitants, who are all local farm-ers. It has a compact form and is clearly delimited from its surroundings.

Within the village, one-storey enclosed courtyard houses, all of the same

basic form, are the standard building module, while the clans inhabiting

these buildings are the basic organisational unit. The arable land surround-

ing the village is mainly owned by families and farmed by their members.

As a result, the land is divided into small parcels and intensively cultivated.

Hardly any land is unused, every landscape element has a function related

to the productive functions of the land (e.g., irrigation ditches, wind-shel-

ter plantings, fishponds), and even the smallest and most odd-shaped plots

in the villages are worked to grow crops and vegetables.

Bei jin g' Ne w U b n C oun ty i e a. stokmn, s. rbe & s. ruff

Although today some villages around Beijing still retain a rela tively tra-

ditional air, China’s economic opening has lead to unprecedented diversi-

fication. In the wake of rapid urbanisation and new socio-economic con-

stellations, most villages have changed their character completely and

increasingly become part of an overall urban fabric, dynamic places of

highly contradictory, simultaneous developments.

Floating people’s new territory

While in the episode described above all land is intensively farmed by

families, in the second episode (Fig. 5) some plots lie fallow while oth-

ers are taken over by new stakeholders. The result is a significantly dif-

ferent pattern of land use, mainly due to the new actors and forces that

have come into play since the reform era of the 1980s and 1990s. The ba-

sis for this change in population composition and associated social net-

works are amendments to the Hukou system, a national household regis-

tration system that was introduced in 1958 and is still in force today (Wang

2002). It classifies all people into one of two categories: urban or agrarian.

families living in traditionalcourtyard houses

Sell crops on local

market / in marketcities

working onown fields

working onown fields

F A R M

E R S

M I G R A N T S

I N H A B I T A N T S

P A T T E R N S

S C

H E M A T I C L A Y O U T A N D L A N D U S E

C I T Y P E O P L E

AGRI CULT URAL VILL AGEVILLAGE FARMLAND VILLAGE FARMLAND

Figure 4 Episode 1 – Farmer communities homeland

The traditional rural landscape is dominated by rice fields on villagecommunity land.

Every village household grows vegetables in little gardens along thestreets. The sewage canals are open alongside the street.



For people registered as agrarian, in the past it was virtually impossible to

move to a city. For a long time, the system enforced strict residency con-

trol and served as a key instrument to restrict population growth in cities

(Pilz 2000). Since the 1980s, however, in response to the increasing need for

manpower in the cities this system has been considerably relaxed, and cit-

ies have experienced an enormous influx of ‘floating population’ attract-

ed by good job opportunities and higher wage economies. This commonlyused term describes national migrants that, however, are defined rather by

their Hukou status than by the temporariness of their stay, as the name

might suggest. Today, Beijing is estimated to have a floating population of

4 million, comprising about one fourth of its inhabitants. This migration

movement has dramatically changed the social and physical structure of

the villages as well as land use on Beijing’s rural-urban fringe.

With the migrants’ need for cheap accommodation creating a new

economic factor, the existing village communities have developed a new

source of income that is proving more profitable than farming. Not being

supported by the local authorities and employers, most migrants are mov-

ing into existing villages on the city margins offering cheap accom

tion in informal extensions of the original courtyard houses. In m

Beijing’s urban villages today, migrant workers from all parts of Ch

outnumber the local people. In many villages the population has inc

tenfold since the 1980s. A courtyard that used to house one family n

commodates up to ten. As a result the villages have become much d

roads and paths are narrow and full of people and shops, and thermost no vegetation. The farmers have become landlords, making m

from the tenants of the informal structures added to the original

yards, which in many cases are no longer recognisable. This growth

ever, has happened without much infrastructure improvement; wate

ply and disposal systems are overstrained and the surface water is se

polluted. Social tensions aggravate these environmental problems.

As the main source of income of the original villagers is renting

and even their arable land to migrant workers, more and more ag

tural land lies fallow. In fact, almost no village dweller on the frin

Beijing today can be classified as a farmer in a conventional sense.

F A R M

E R S

M I G R A N T S


P A T T E R N S

S C H

E M A T I C L A Y O U T A N D

L A N D U S E

work onconstructionsites /householdsin the city

familiesliving intraditionalcourtyardhouses

sellcrops

workingon foodcompany land / in factory

rent rooms rentfarmland

rent farmland

live on farmlandcultivating it

sellcrops to Hong Kong

V I LLA GE

F A RMLA N Dcultivated bymigrants

DERELICT

LAND

H I GH WA Y U RBA N V I LLA GE

Densified and transformed byadded spaces rented out tomigrants

COMPANY FIELDS

large fields and greenhouses orcommercial zones

In the densified urban villlages village people extend their housesand therefore densify the village structure to have the maximum spaceto rent out to migrants.

Migrants living in barracks on the fields and farming the land of thevillage people.

Figure 5 Episode 2 – Floating people’s new t



have not only become landlords, but some have also, at least temporarily,

moved to the city for work, or found employment in local factories or ag-

ricultural companies where they can earn more. These companies, usual-

ly owned and managed by city people, sell their crops as far away as Hong

Kong, which again leads to new interdependencies and commodity flows.

With industrial-model, modern agricultural companies arising, the par-celling of land has also changed and plots have become much larger to

permit intensive farming.

In conclusion it can be stated that migration, new sources of income

and the weakening of the clan structure have fundamentally altered both

the physical and socio-economic structure of the villages as well as the

patterns of land use (Heberer 2003). As urban and rural land use and life

styles have mixed on the urban edge, both the original and floating rural

residents have now become urbanised and are no longer dependent on ag-

riculture to make a living.

Urban pioneers experimental field

In the third episode (Fig. 6) city people, including non-Chinese residents,

appear as a new group. The increasing variety of stakeholders is also di-

versifying the range of activities on Beijing’s outskirts. As family-based

farming as a source of income has declined new, more unconventional and

experimental land uses have emerged. Because land on the urban periph-

ery is still cheap and local landowners are increasingly willing to sell offproperty, they are meeting the needs of city dwellers searching for cheap

land and space for various activities that have been priced out of the city

centre. This demand brings both a further transformation of the exist-

ing physical structures and patterns and the emergence of new socio-eco-

nomic networks.

One such new development is Beijing Crab Island Natural Resort, an

organic farm that attracts huge amounts of visitors. As a model project

sponsored by various state environmental protection agencies it combines

organic farming with recreation and amusement, including a restaurant

and accommodation, angling and even plots of land for rent where people


F A R M E R S

M I G R A N T S


P A T T E R N S

S C H E M A T I C L A Y O U T A N D

L A N D U S E

C I T Y P E O P L E

families livingin traditionalcourtyard houses

sell crop

work on constructionsites /households inthe city

workingin the city

workingon foodcompany land / in factory

rent roomsrentfarmland

rent farmland

live on farmlandcultivating it

visit restaurant of theorchard

visiting exhibition /buying art artists living and

working in studiospaces

HIGHWAY URBAN VILLAGEDERELICTLAND

ART VILLAGEartists' studios andexhibition space

MIGRANTS-FARMLAND

THEORCHARD

organic farm withgarden +restaurant

The orchard is a tourist attraction combining scenic organic farming ina traditional image with an exclusive restaurant.

Artists needing low p riced working and exhibition space convert farmbuildings to art galleries and build studios nearby.

Figure 6 Episode 3 – Urban pioneers’ experimental field



can grow their own organic vegetables and fruit. Also catering for city peo-

ple who venture to the urban fringe for a weekend outing is The Orchard,

a European- and North American-inspired restaurant especially popular

with expatriates . Set in an oasis-li ke environment with fruit trees and

small ponds, it offers organic menus with ingredients grown on site. Al-

though close to a village, The Orchard has an isolated character. Its ownerhowever, a famous Chinese rock musician, aims to let the village people

also benefit from The Orchard’s success. As a model project, he has started

to renovate a traditional courtyard house in the village, intending to rent

it out to affluent city people or foreigners and thus showing a way for the

village people to make higher rents than they can from migrants.

Another new use that adds to the hete roge neity of Beijing's urban

fringe are art spaces that have emerged on former factory sites close to old

villages. This development is a result of the gentrification of established

art districts closer to the city that is driving artists and gallery owners

out to the periphery (Kögel 2007 ). The former factories, shut down by the

municipality due to the pollution they caused, have been gradually

possession of and remodelled. With world-famous artists like Ai W

living and working in these areas and galleries springing up everyw

this development draws many visitors to the rural-urban fringe – no

from the adjacent city but even internationally, as China’s art scene

coming increasingly famous.The multitude of actors and interests described above results in a

ical pattern and appearance which is initially barely comprehensib

the mapping shows, however, the intertwining of village people an

grants in the village on the one hand and city people outside the villa

the other is relatively low. This will change in the next episode.

Playground for the established and rich

In the last episode (Fig. 7 ), the physical structure of the tradition

lage and physical patterns of agricultural land use have entirely van

All agricultural land has been replaced by governmental forestation

F A R M E R S

M I G R A N T S


P A T T E R N S

S C H E M A T I

C L A Y O U T A N D

L A N D U S E

C I T Y P E O P L E

farmer familiesliving in new houses

work on constructionsites in the city

workin the city

work

in the city

work in villas

rent land

work in the city

rentrooms

renthouses

playing golf

HIGHWAY NEW VILLAGE GOVERNMEN-TALFORESTATION

GOVERN-MENTALFORESTA-TION

GOLF RESORTMRD: MICRO RESIDENTIALDISTRICT

Rich city people move to luxurious micro residential districtsdeveloped on the urban fringe, protected by fences and security guards, with private parks and facilities.

City people play golf in golf resorts.

Figure 7 Episode 4 – Playground for the established a



ecological measure is in accordance with the effort to establish the eco-

logical function of the second green belt. Crop farming has been largely

pushed back, since it is regarded as consuming too much water and thus

aggravating Beijing’s severe water scarcity. Likewise, animal husbandry

has been almost completely abolished. Instead, large amounts of land

have been forested.

Within these new forest spaces luxurious villa compounds, but also

golf resorts or even software parks, have sprung up, looking like ornamen-

tal inlays as they have a completely insular character without cross-links

to their surrounding landscape. They are connected to a new large-scale

road infrastructure, which provides fast access both to the city centre and

its Central Business District (CBD) located along the third ring road and

the airport along the fifth ring road.

Other new types of neighbourhoods are the ‘new villages’. They mainly

house former farmers who were resettled when their old villages were de-

molished. While the different building clusters within Beijing’s second

green belt are relatively self-contained physically, they do trigger new so -cio-economic interrelations. Former farmers, now living in new villages,

still rent rooms to migrant workers, who in turn work in the city on c on-

struction sites, in households or a s self-employed entrepreneurs such as

car cleaners, fruit sellers, or shoe repairers. To some extent they also work

and even live in the villa compounds as gardeners, maids, cooks or clean-

ing personnel. Some buildings within the new villages are also owned

by city people who cannot afford one of the expensive villas in the com-

pounds described above.

Most of the city people who appeared as urban pioneers looking for

cheap places to live in the previous episode, here attain an established sta-

tus and are looking for expensive, exclusive properties. They reside in the

most luxurious villa compounds with aspirational names such as Palaisde Fortune or River Adagio, and play golf in fancy resorts.

Apart from the officially sanctioned developments in Beijing’s second

green belt, a black market of illegal land and housing transactions has de-

veloped, with local communities trying to sell land that is not designated

for development according to municipal land use regulations. Although

many of these developments have not been exposed there are a number

of illegal construction sites that have been stopped and fallen derelict.

They bear witness to the tremendous dynamics of Beijing’s urban growth,

which can hardly be guided, let alone regulated.

Design scenari os and prospec ts for Beijing’s u rban count ryside

As shown above, Beijing’s master planning has so far been unable to ad -

dress the complex landscape changes on the city’s rural-urban fringes,

which ignore the visions and rules of the municipality’s land-use maps

and regulations. What can strategic landscape planning, from a landscape

architecture point of view, look like when it promotes urban development

that responds to these multilayered societal structures and their spatial

expression on the city margin, carries them forward and simultaneously

develops good open space quality, in both the aesthetic and the ecological

sense, for an entire metropolis?

Rather than separating the open space within the urban fringe from

the built-up area that needs to be restricted as described by Ouyang and

Wang 2002, the episodes described above show how the multiple issues of

different connections between the use of built-up areas in relationship to

the use of the open spaces are kept in conjunction. However, they not only

permit a glimpse of a seemingly chaotic situation but also show that the

patterns and processes of Beijing’s urban fringe are based on a set of un-

derlying logics. The method of mapping helps to discover new ways of see-ing and understanding these complex urban patterns and processes – and

hence becomes part of a creative design process. James Corner states that,

surprisingly, “the strategic, constitutive and inventive capacities of map-

ping are not widely recognized in the urban design and planning arts,”

although mapping can serve as “an active and creative agent of cultural

intervention.” (Corner 1999: 217 ) Recognizing the diversity of logics and ex-

ploiting the potentials of the existing episodes, new strategic episodes can

be invented in the form of ‘design scenarios’, which are tied to one of the

existing episodes, entering at different stages, forming new links or com-

bining different urban formations.

To develop different design scenarios for a designated area within the

Second Green Belt based on the method of mapping was the task of a four-week cross-cultural student workshop in September 2007, during which

a group of 20 students of Landscape Architecture from Peking University,

Leibniz University Hannover and ENSP Versailles worked in intercultural

teams on a workshop entitled ‘Designing with complexity – Beijing’s new

urban countryside’. As a case study to understand, discuss and develop spa-

tial strategies, the area of Cuigezhuang County and the small-scale site of

Hegezhuang Village were chosen, situated in the northeast of the city on

the margin between the 5th Ring and the airport – the landscape patterns

and images of this area are shown in Fig. 1. At the same time the Gradu-




ate School of Landscape Architecture of Peking University had been com-

missioned to conduct a research project by the Beijing Municipal Bureau

of State Land and Resources to develop a new spatial strategy for this area,

replacing the existing proposal for a new masterplan. The students’ de-

sign research and ideas contributed to their research and at the same time

prepared the ground for discussion within the concurrent Second Sino-

German High Level Expert Workshop ‘Applications of Landscape Planning

and Design towards Sustainable Urban and Rural Development in China’.

The design approach

Observing the conditions made up of set-piece fragments and parallel

worlds of disparate social and spatial concurrences in an alien culture, how

does one arrive at ideas for spatial strategy-making and proposals for new

spatial layouts? Planning tradition is characterized by a belief in a linear

working process, starting with the large scale before coming down to the

small scale, and completing a comprehensive data analysis before starting

to design and develop ideas. Within the STUDIO URBANE LANDSCHAF-TEN and its theoretical and practical focus in the field of ‘innovation strate-

gies in landscape design’ (Seggern et. al. 2008) a methodological approach was

developed that involved a non-linear working process to enable the stu-

dents to develop ideas on large-scale and complex sites. During the work-

shop process we worked at several different scales simultaneously (village

scale, county scale, city scale) and at the same time used different approach-

es to conceiving space towards the development of design scenarios:

EXPERIENCE – the intuitive perception

The experience of different situations within space takes place on the 1:1

scale of human perception. When designing in complex spaces it is impor-

tant to use our intuitive abilities to generate ideas out of coincidences of

personal encounters and perceptions in combination with personal expe-rience and interest. Based on their initial impressions, the students had

to design their research strategies for exploring the site very quickly fol-

lowing their individual motivation. Their personal way of addressing the

site, their conversations, observations and interactions with people and

space played a crucial role in the search for ideas. The productive energy

generated from an understanding of people acting in response to the most

diverse needs and motives as well as the appreciation of existing spatial

qualities thus became the driving force of the design process.

REPRESENTATION – depicting processes and relationships

Abstract depictions (mappings and graphics as socio-spatial present

of different ‘episodes’) stimulate, through a process of selection, red

and schematisation, productive reformulation of what is already

Findings from personal experience in combination with additional

mation from different sources formed the basis for representation of

ent episodes within the workshop. These representative descriptions

ple’s ways of life, social contexts, ecological processes and resultant

expressions in the area became the main instrument for generating

leading towards multifarious design approaches and their justificati

RELATION – the analysis of context and connections

Interpretations and design ideas for a specific site always have to b

sidered in terms of their significance and consequences for the ad

areas, the entire metropolis, while the specific context of China mu

be taken into account. With all parts of the city being connected a

teracting, changes to a place or an area must be related to the large

context, and as the site of the workshop was part of Beijing’s plGreen Belt, its overall concept had to be considered. The overall aim

workshop was to design an urban landscape as part of the Second

Belt that was not intended to serve the purposes of growth regulatio

spatial division of city and countryside, but that could create man

relations and interconnections between ecological, social and prod

functions for the metropolis of Beijing.

FABRIC – shaping the physical structure and appearance

Breaking down the ideas to the smaller-scale study area of county a

lage, served to ascertain the ideas’ manifestation within a unique,

ing physical fabric which contributes to the special character of th

Instead of the common land use planning practice in China, desi

abstract colour-coded blocks of building development, transport/uand open spaces, at this stage a plan was sought that conveyed an

of the aesthetic appearance – invoking a sense of the special qualiti

possibilities of an urban l andscape on the city margin. The presen

can no longer be abstract at this level; it must deliver ideas that ma

space’s qualities visible to the relevant stakeholders, but by the sam

ken be open enough to respond to the unpredictable dynamics of a

ning process (Langner/Rabe 2008).


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EXPERIENCE – Exploring the territory the students discovered that al-

though most of the farmland was not being used by the ‘original’ local

farmers any more, different people are taking over parts of the land, in-

habiting and making productive use of it (Fig.8).

REPRESENTATION - The existing typologies described in the ‘Urban

Pioneers Experimental Field’ episode as ‘The Orchard’ and ‘Beijing CrabIsland Natural Resort’ as well as the unofficial housing of migrants on

leased farmland in the ‘Floating Peoples’ Territory’ episode provided the

team’s inspiration for designing new building types with references to

landscape and farming. By mapping different typologies of land use origi-

nating from the transitional situation of the project area between agricul-

tural and urban culture, the students showed how a relationship between

people and the still productive landscape in the project area can be estab-

lished in an urban way derived from various motivations.

RELATION - Starting with the assumption that a growing urban pop-

ulation will have to be fed from ever-more remote sources, even from

Jo urn al of La nds ca pe Arc hi te ct ure / aut umn 200 8

The following two selected workshop design proposals describe very dif-

ferent scenarios that clearly found a productive connection between land-

scape and life on the margin of Beijing with added value for the whole me-

tropolis.

Agriculture and life – productive landscapes

Addressing the fact that the original farmers within Beijing’s rural-urban

fringe nowadays have other sources of income so that most of the former-

ly productive farmland today lies fallow or becomes afforested, Eva Nem-

cova, Fu Jia, Liao Hui Li and She Yi Shuang asked: “Who could be the new

farmer?” Through this question and their knowledge of people and their

highly diverse needs and social status, they devised new landscape typol-

ogies for work, housing and recreation based on the idea of the produc-

tive use of the land.

Figure 8 from top to bot tom :EXPERIENCE – Productive Landscapes: Typologies due to social lifestandard and motivations.‘Floating farmer’ lives in this informal settlement close to the village,rents farmland from local people and sells vegetables in the village.‘Floating family’ – ten- and seven-year-old girl and boy living withher family illegally in the fields.‘Floating workers’ – work for a food company that sells products toHong Kong, living temporarily in the village.

Figure 10 FABRIC – Productive Landscapes: Masterplan

Figure 9 RELATION – Productive Landscapes: Beijing’s Second GreenBelt as farmland



abroad, and that, with the loss of its agricultural use, the landscape will

deteriorate both aesthetically and ecologically, the authors designated all

the remaining open spaces within Beijing’s Second Green Belt as farm-

land (Fig. 9), invoking Chinese policy that, because of the food shortage,

had placed protection orders on agricultural land in many places. Their

design is a strategy to revive agricultural areas i n an urban spirit for foodproduction, accommodation and employment creation. Aesthetic added

value for the city in the sense of a Green Belt as local recreational area can

be richer in a cultivated landscape than in an area comprising only wood-

land with very limited access. Ecologic al, aesthetic and functional diver-

sity can emerge through the most varied institutional forms of organic

farming and in variously sized parcels of land (Fig. 10).

FABRIC – ‘Large Scale Fields’ are leased by commercial food producing

enterprises. This model is described in the ‘Floating Peoples New Territo-

ry’ episode as ‘Company Fields/Commercial Zones’. These companies use

modern techniques for effective land cultivation, water-saving irrigation

and harvesting. They employ and qualify migrant farmers who cu

and harvest the land for a wage. What is new, however, is the idea o

pology of small dwellings, financed by the company, for itinerant w

and their families, arranged around public community courtyards

cially designed to fit into the fields and equipped with the latest te

ogy of decentralised water treatment systems that recycle nutrientsin agriculture, these miniature villages become an interesting feat

the productive landscape, serving as official housing for immigrant

are usually only tolerated (Fig. 11).

The ‘Mixed Fields’ typology consists of small parcels of land, each

a small house and paths in between that are accessible to the public

from food production, they are intended to meet both the immig

need for accommodation and to grow their own food, and the w

prosperous city residents for a weekend cottage with access to the cou

side and healthy self-grown food. At the same time they are also reg

as a direct marketing strategy for agricultural produce close to th

Figure 12c Everybody’s Garden: a large ‘garden’ divided into 36 units each of 100 m2 , open to the public as the name sugges

Figure 11 FABRIC – Productive Landscapes: Typology ‘Large Scale Fields’

Figure 12a Farmer’s Small Field: units of 2,500 m2 for self-sufficiency, with a dwelling and business connections to sell prod

Figure 12b Weekend Garden: 100-m2 gardens with small weekend cottages for city dwellers





The ‘Mixed Fields’ are in the public domain and offer places to buy di-

rect from the farmer or to practise horticulture as a hobby. The typology

is subdivided into the ‘Farmer’s Small Field’, ‘Weekend Garden’ and ‘Eve-

rybody’s Garden’ (Fig 12 ). While the ‘Farmer’s Small Field’ is intended to

serve mainly as a garden for self-sufficiency, using the migrants’ farming

skills to create an attractive, small-scale productive landscape that is also

for recreational use, the ‘Weekend Garden’ and ‘Everybody’s Garden’ areintended to attract city dwellers by offering them leisure activities and

the experience of growing and harvesting their own food – either by a plot

that they manage by themselves (private ‘Weekend Gardens’) or by the

help of maintainers. ‘Everybody’s Garden’ is a place for ‘hands-on farm-

ing’, run as a business by one person but carried out by many. The pro-

ductive areas of the ‘Mixed Fields’ offer leisure activities for city dwellers,

amusing themselves with sowing and harvesting, and at the same time

create new job opportunities for the migrant farmers – a kind of experi-

mental field for new urban ways of farming, creating new social relation-

ships and landscape performances.

RELATION – The links between the separate farming plots form a

green infrastructure of trees along the access roads, recreation paths andthe rivers and ditches. This network of woodland and wetland offers broad

protection from sandstorms for fields and dwellings, creates ecological

corridors linking to the river plain, and provides access by linking differ-

ent recreation areas within the agricultural green belt of Beijing. Syner-

gies between the ‘Large Fields’ and ‘Mixed Fields’ agricultural lots and the

green infrastructure create a large-scale public park landscape, the ‘Pro-

ductive Park’, with ecological qualities and aesthetic/design enhancement

for the city population: a new concept of the ‘new good old days’ between

traditional farming culture, modern cultivation techniques and healthy

city life for Beijing’s Second Green Belt (Fig 13).

Woodland and life – dynamic landscapes

Yan Lu and Benoît Fangou approached the study area with a narrative

methodology that addressed the diversity of the existing dynamics, and

developed a spatial framework that makes use of these dynamics and sets

them in new relationships.

EXPERIENCE – The two students took a journey from the city centre

to the site on the rural-urban fringe and thus physically experienced the

changes in appearance of and striking contrasts between different parts ofthe urban fabric along an urban-rural transect.

REPRESENTATION – In mappings, the design team depicted the

processes and resultant tensions between natural dynamics (such as

the dry yellow dust-bearing wind that blows through Beijing from the

north every year and the dramatic fluctuations in water conditions from

drought to river basin flooding) and the dynamics of urban development

processes (such as the streams of commuters into and out of the city and

building development pressure from the airport to the north and the

Sixth Ring to the south of the planning area). They seized on these ex-

tremes, described in the ‘Playground for the Established and Rich’ Epi-

sode, in the juxtaposition of villages and residential developments with

governmental forestation, as their design principle, making connectionsbetween the residential districts and the woodland.

FABRIC – The two shaping elements of the space (buildings and trees)

were allowed to grow towards each other in the masterplan: the wood

spreading from the north, from the river, as a windbreak against sand-

storms and as a natural limit to development from the airport and the

buildings spreading from the south, in the traditional concentric growth

from the Fifth Ring, from which the villages were most strongly reshaped

due to their proximity to it. The students play with the classical oppositions

of city and countryside but suspend them in the moment where woodland

and buildings meet and create a new spatial unity (Figs. 13 & 14 ).

Figure 14 FABRIC – Dynamic Landscapes: Section guiding principle with trees and buildings Figure 13 FABRIC – Dynamic Landscapes: Masterplan



RELATION – How can a wood be of use to a city and its people, above and

beyond protecting them against sandstorms and creeping development?

China’s economic need for timber is immense, and commercial forestry

would thus be the first conclusion, but looking more closely at the exist-

ing woodland on the city margin reveals multifarious informal urban uses

that, in creating a programme for woodland, open up additional, complete-

ly new possibilities in combination with the commercial use of timber.EXPERIENCE – On the edges of the woods one finds astonishing infor-

mal adaptations: shepherds driving sheep and cows through the woods,

beekeepers who set up their hives there, tethered horses ‘stabled’ there,

even barbers and traders trying to make a living on the edge of the woods

along the through roads … (Fig. 15): an urban wood, then, that helps to

improve the climate and at the same time incorporates the functions of

accommodation and business, a multifunctional wood for inventive peo-

ple looking for a place to work and survive within the urban fabric.

FABRIC - The students incorporated these images in their design and

found a strategy for defining a green forest space to shape the urban lay-

out in which further building development will still be possible: not the

clear spatial separation of city and countryside but mixed forms that pickup on the existing tensions and create space for new possibilities (Figs.

16 & 17 ). The exact specification of the proportion of development land

and maximum woodland area in concentric alternation derived from Bei-

jing’s Ring System lends this planning its strict regularity. The concept is

open enough to allow a dynamic of informal appropriation of landscape

as commercial and recreational space and nevertheless sets clear rules. Yan

Lu and Benoit Fangou compare their strategy with an ‘apples and water’

metaphor. Apples and water are in themselves good and important, but

mixing them creates something new and sparkling: cider.

Discussion of workshop outcomes

With the students taking their episodes as a base for the formulat

new spatial strategies addressing different topics, the resulting wo

be seen as a series of design scenarios for an area of Beijing’s rural-

fringe. Their designs tell about their constructive involvement wit

other in their intercultural teams, their debates, and their explorati

the potentials of the complex site from their different perspectives. T

sults bring to life an idealist way of seeing the urban landscape as aning, open and productive system of creative urban practices. The stu

interpret the existing urban landscape as a framework for new socia

tural, economic and ecological activities that will materialise withi

urban landscape patterns. They show how to encourage opportunism

taking and challenge and thus mobilise different actors which, as i

otic systems, also operate catalytically on a micro-scale and ultimat

fect the whole. Each group’s scenario contains a logical storyline rela

their topic – but of course different scenarios could also be related t

other and interwoven towards new and more complex scenarios.

The explorative work of the student workshop served as an eye

er and stimulator, unfolding new potential and opening up creati

course with the research group of Peking University, the Municipreau of Land and Resources and the invited international expe

landscape planning. Using the richness and resonance of the inv

scenarios, the workshop created an environment of informal discu

within an open and creative atmosphere. Unlike abstract land-use

the designed scenarios with their plans, images and sketches are a

evoke new ideas and dialogues about what to do, why to do it and

to do it. While acknowledging that political and administrative ci

stances will ultimately determine how a plan can be pursued, the s

ios could be developed towards feasible planning strategies, commi

packages and policy agreements.

Figure 15 EXPERIENCE – Dynamic Landscapes: urban woodlandincorporating the functions of shelter and business





Conclusion

Fringe landscapes are complex, and existing planning policies are trying to

compartmentalise land uses to a specific, clearly classified and static cate-

gory without considering the equivocal, synergetic and dynamic interac-

tions that present themselves on the edges of cities. Most existing strate-

gies and tools used in urban development are built on the belief that theformation and transformation of a city can be controlled. Beijing’s mas-

terplanning efforts show that planning has so far failed to think ahead in

addressing the future of its fringe landsca pes – although the plans seem

rigid they continuously have to respond, often in ad hoc ways, to the real

development forces. Many European researchers have criticised existing

urban masterplanning practices as being too deterministic, inflexible and

largely unrealistic in their attempts to predict a two-dimensional urban

pattern at the expense of economic, cultural and social concerns (Giddings/

Hopwood 2002, Loeckx et al. 2004; Healey 2007 ). Internationally, too, many re-

searchers and practitioners in urban and landscape design (Gallent et al.

2007, Friedmann 1996; Gregory 2003; Seggern/ Sieverts 2006; Whitehand 2005; Yu/

Padua 2006 ) conclude that we need to move towards a more responsive stra-tegic design praxis for large-scale urban landscapes, one based on using ex-

isting processes towards new potential i n empowering human creativity

and resourcefulness. To address the general theme of transformation as

the persistent urban condition, planning needs to develop methodologies

that can mobilize wider support by building new partnerships, reconcil-

ing competing interests, and setting up new connections that may lead to

new creative synergies. At the same time, it needs to create a spatial vision,

a sense of place, showing how to create aesthetic and spatial qualities of the

urban and landscape environment that become visible to relevant stake-

holders as a place, not just as an abstract colour-coded land-use map.

Taking the case of a specific site within Beijing’s rural-urban fringe dur-

ing the Sino-German workshop ‘Beijing’s New Urban Countryside’, we

developed and discussed new urban landscape scenarios based on an ap-

proach of mapping complex existing social practices and spatial forms.

By using our intellectual capability to fix assumptions and develop ideasprior to detailed analysis, the applied method of ‘design research’ implies

a process of developing knowledge through design practices of probing,

reflecting and arguing, springing between scales and switching between

methods of gaining and testing knowledge in an interpretative, non-lin-

ear way of ‘sense-and-place-making’. Formal planning procedures favour

hierarchical, systematic, technical and linear logics by first setting su-

perordinate land-use guidelines that small-scale projects have to follow.

However, we believe that planning also needs to apply creative processes

of exploration and discovery on different scales at the same time, generat-

ing new meanings, perceiving new patterns as well as revealing and dis-

cussing new strategic options. To combine a top-down strategy of regula-

tive power with a bottom-up strategy of activating people’s actions seemsthe only way to develop the economic, ecological and aesthetic productiv-

ity of Beijing’s green belt, which will otherwise not withstand the huge

pressure of urban growth.

To address today’s urban challenges, the rol e of urban and landscape

planners should be to investigate the forms of urban evolution and the

processes that create or engender outcomes. On the basis of recognising

and extracting the processes of urban landscape development, strategies

can be developed to influence and cultivate the processes themselves – and

thus create productive and attractive urban lifeworlds.

Figure 16 & 1 7 FABRIC – Dynamic Landscapes: scenarios of multifunctional and dynamic urban woodlands


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Biographical Notes

Antje Stokman studied Landscape Architecture at Leibn

versity Hannover and Edinburgh College of Art. Since g

tion she has been researching and lecturing at Hannov

versity, TU Hamburg Harburg, TFH Berlin, Peking Un

and Tongji University Shanghai, China, concurrently g

practical experience as a landscape architect in many in

tional projects with Rainer Schmidt Landschaftsarchit

Since 2005 she has been Associate Professor of Ecosystem

sign and Watershed Management at Leibniz University

nover.

Sabine Rabe studied Landscape Architecture at Leibniz

versity Hannover. After several years of practical design

rience in the lad+ landscape architecture diekmann off

has been working as a freelance designer since 2005, an

entific Assistant at Leibniz University Hannover. Her fo

teaching and designing is on urban landscapes and larg

planning.

Stefanie Ruff trained as a gardener and studied Landsca

chitecture in Berlin. She has gained professional experi

Berlin, Sydney, Beijing, Amsterdam and Shanghai. She

her Master’s degree in International Urban Studies fromhaus University Weimar and Tongji University Shangh

rently she is based in Berlin.

Antje Stokman, Sabine Rabe and Stefanie Ruff are mem

Studio Urbane Landschaften , an interdisciplinary networ

search, teaching and practice at the Faculty of Architec

Landscape Sciences, Leibniz University Hannover.

Contact

Antje Stokman, Sabine Rabe, Stefanie Ruff

Studio Urbane Landschaften

Institut für Freiraumentwicklung

Fakultät für Architektur und Landschaft

Herrenhäuser Str. 2a

D-30419 Hannover

Germany

[email protected]

[email protected]

[email protected]

Acknowledgement s

The international expert workshop and research in Beijing was funded

by DBU (Deutsche Bundesstiftung Umwelt, reference number 25670-42)

and the accompanying international student workshop by Leibniz Uni-

versity Hannover and Peking University. All diagrams of the four epi-

sodes’ mappings were drawn by Anke Schmidt (Studio Urbane Landschaf-ten). Many thanks to Christina von Haaren (Leibniz University Hannover)

and Kongjian Yu (Peking University) for their strong support of the work-

shop. Very special thanks to Dihua Li (Peking University) for orga

the workshop and to Hille von Seggern (Leibniz University Hannove

Timm Ohrt (Ohrt von Seggern Partner, Hamburg) for their teachin

port. And of course we would like to thank all students and exper

volved for their excellent contributions, which formed the basis fopaper.

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