Walkable Design Neighborhood, A Sustainable Urban Form

Recent urban development in China has serious faults in account of a sustainable course of action. More precisely, walkability, car independency, social encounter and local business are missing principles in new urban developments, specifically high-rise neighborhood developments. The configuration of these kinds of development causes a threat for the future, which is shown in the study area. To practice a design task within the field of Urban Design, a neighborhood close to the river waterfront in Nanjing was chosen. Current situation was investigated on site via observation by the author. Guidelines were formulated according to local conditions by means of integrating principles derived from other commendable case studies. The official future plans of the neighborhood, proposed by Nanjing Planning Bureau were examined under Smart Growth principles and Space Syntax theory and its framework around natural movement. An urban design task was carried out based on guidelines derived from local cases, design theory and the syntax analysis. The evaluation of the design task concluded that principles around configuration are needed to be integrated in neighborhood developments with the aim of achieving walkability. Smaller block size is considered as a crucial configuration attribute for similar projects, aiming at creating walkable, sustainable neighborhoods.Contact Number:+46-72031282