Adaptive reuse of historical buildings and urban areas in Shanghai (1990-2008): a practical and critical assessment

© 2009 Lu Zhang.Adaptive reuse, as an alternative approach to the treatment of existing old buildings and urban areas, is being received more concerns in contemporary China. Taking Shanghai as an example, this thesis attempts to assess the practice of reuse of historical buildings in the urban context of Shanghai from 1990 to 2008. In this research, the practice of adaptive reuse is studied with a focus on improving dynamic urban life through giving old buildings an advisable new use. With the aim of finding out what makes a lively and dynamic city, I employ the theory of city diversity from Jane Jacobs into my research as a theoretical basis to be tested in the research. These investigations of Shanghai were conducted during a fieldwork in Shanghai. The case includes three types, which are respectively located in different areas in contemporary Shanghai. The first one is an alteration and upgrading of old industrial buildings on the waterfront. The second is a reuse of clusters of commercial buildings built in the colonial era on the Bund, with the ‘Bund 18’ building as a critical example. The third one is an urban renewal through adaptive reuse of traditional residential buildings in an inner city area, with a focused study on the Xintiandi area. Through empirical analysis of these three cases, I try to examine the relationship between the buildings transformed through adaptive reuse and the urban surroundings in terms of participation or use by the various urban populations, and further explore how adaptive reuse may contribute to the generation and sustaining of diverse urban life in the urban context. We may assume that the relationship between the city and the user is linked by urban activities, and that diversity of urban life can contribute to the healthy growth of cities. Given these assumptions, the empirical studies in this thesis suggest that the principal condition in adaptive reuse of historical buildings, for generating diverse and active urban life, is a potential in the old buildings to be ‘divided’. This includes ‘divisions’ of space, function and the category of users. Consequently, the design principles, as I would propose at the end of this study, are as follows: extracting spatial potential, creating mixed and small-scale businesses, and expanding categories of users to attract participation of a broad spectrum of the population with a diverse social background. Based on this, the practice of adaptive reuse of historical buildings can help reviving a close and dynamic relationship between the user and the physical setting, people and the city, facilitating the generation and sustaining of a diverse and healthy urban life