Lei Qu

Delft University of Technology | TU · Department of Urbanism

The presence of urban villages inside the city is a common phenomenon in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) region. This chapter investigates the reference cases of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, to provide insights into the issues of inclusiveness in the rapid urbanisation process in this region, in the context of industrial upgrading and migration. This is don...

Urbanism is a way of thinking and acting needed for sustainable development; urbanists are becoming inter- and transdisciplinary, bringing science, technology, and design into their field. As the world is in a cascading of crises related to, e.g., health, energy, food, and water, as well as issues of, e.g., traffic, housing, and services, integrate...

The unprecedented speed and scale of urbanization in China calls for advanced planning and design strategies. This paper aims to explore a new pedagogical approach that cultivates morphological regional design studies to develop spatial strategies that acknowledge the complex and diverse urban landscapes of Chinese megaregions. Accordingly, the obj...

This chapter introduces the pedagogical approach of guiding vision and strategy making in university design studios. This is a unique way of teaching spatial planning in design education, bridging research, planning, and design. It will use one of the master’s courses at the Urbanism Department of TU Delft as an example: the regional design studio...

The Pearl River Delta (PRD) region represents delta urbanism in the Chinese context. In the past four decades, massive urbanization happened and transformed its deltaic landscape with unexpected speed and magnitude. Based on the review of its development trajectory, this chapter focuses on the planning of green infrastructure in this region as a st...

This article contributes to the discussion about learning from group methods in design education. Based on action research results, it presents and reflects on teaching activities related to urban and regional design in TU Delft, Faculty of Architecture and the Built Environment, conducted and coordinated by the authors. Constructive alignment of t...

Villages in Chinese megaregions are struggling to economically compete with their megaregional context. In order to prosper, villages seem to have two choices: to preserve their structure as much as possible and become “beautiful villages in the countryside” that attract tourism; or to radically re-develop and cluster with other villages, attemptin...

This paper aims to demonstrate how ‘research by design,’ which is an approach bridging research, design, and planning, can help unpack the complexity of today’s metropolitan challenges by considering the resource flows and processes that were omitted by traditional ways of planning. This is crucial for circular developments. By reporting the experi...

Currently Shenzhen is experiencing industrial upgrading and city reprofiling, transforming from a world factory to a world city. It is a crucial moment to rethink the future of urban villages in the city, informal settlements that emerged extensively along with rapid industrialization and urban development in the past three decades, and played esse...

The rapid development of Chinese megacities in the last decades have been mainly characterized by top-down planning and large-scale urban development and redevelopment, as well as by using place-making as a tool for city branding. This approach has also been used in other countries and has been constantly criticized for replacing old neighborhoods....

Abstract The concept of circular economy (CE) is high on the agenda of many planning agencies in European countries. It has also become a prominent issue in European academic education institutions. It is expected that spatial planning and design can support and add the spatial quality dimension of such a transition towards CE. However, incorporati...

The concept of circular economy (CE) is high on the agenda of many planning agencies in European countries. It has also become a prominent issue in European academic education institutions. It is expected that spatial planning and design can support and add the spatial quality dimension of such a transition towards CE. However, incorporating the co...

In the past few years, one of the major changes in urban development strategies of the first-tier cities in China is the increasing focus on urban regeneration. To cope with the magnitude of migration and challenges of economic transition, these cities are forced to find new models of urban redevelopment. This has brought up a few challenging quest...

This publication is in response to the call of 2017 Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\Architecture (Shenzhen) (UABB) “Cities, Grow in Difference”, from the perspective of urbanism: the synthesis of factors that collectively determine the spatial use of the city. This atlas is based on master graduation theses of Delft University of Technology (TU Delft...

Shenzhen is changing into a world city. Such transformation is happening mainly within built-up areas, due to a shortage of land availability for urban expansion. This paper intends to explore new planning and design methods for urban regeneration in Shenzhen in the current context of industrial upgrading and migration, using Dalang neighborhood as...

Increased surface runoff generated in urban areas due to larger proportion of impervious surfaces has, in many cases, exceeded the capacity of urban drainage systems. In response to such challenge, this paper introduces the quantitative analysis of pluvial flood alleviation by open surface water systems in the case of Almere in the Netherlands and...

Greenway as landscaped, linear and multi-purpose component of urban planning has been increasingly used globally, especially in cities experiencing de-industrialization process. It has the potential to restructure city regions and improve connectivity of public spaces, making cities greener and friendlier to pedestrians and cyclists. There is no do...

Resilient Urbanism is a broad concept that seeks to explore a wide spectrum of topics related to what makes resilience in urban contexts unique: spatial challenges, social and economic equity, climate change, density, mobility, governance, and other characteristics related to the unpredictable and ever-changing urban environment. It proposes a visi...

Urban village is a very special type of neighbourhood, created in the fast urbanisation process in Chinese cities like Shenzhen in the past three decades, playing an essential role in accommodating floating population. Built by the villagers whose land was transformed into urban use, these high-density informal settlements have become places where...

Both operating on urban environment, water management and spatial planning are inherently connected, yet the management systems are separated in the Dutch tradition. In recent years, new ways of thinking facilitating integrated water management and spatial planning started to emerge. This paper contributes to such concepts, specifically exploring t...

Mega-event strategies and their impact on the development of host cities have drawn increasing interest as they have become part of wider city development strategies. Studies of mega-event strategies have tended to focus on a single perspective such as economic rationale and impact. As greater attention is paid to their long-term impact, there is a...

在全球气候变化的背景下,随着城市化进程的加快,许多城市面临了雨洪灾害的风险.而合理的城市空间规划对于雨洪管理是可以产生积极作用的.文章介绍了荷兰城市阿尔梅勒的地表水系与城市空间的特点,利用ARCGIS软件工具对它的地表水系形态与地表类型分布进行了统计分析.通过案例研究,对城市空间规划设计与雨洪管理之间的关系进行了探讨,提出了有利于减小城市雨洪风险的用地与水系规划的建议.

This paper proposed a research framework to contribute to understanding how integrated policy and implementation approaches, based on the concept of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) can create more positive relationships between water management and urban development. The research includes the interaction of technical measures and public...

Since the late 1990s, the rapid urbanisation process in China has been related to an apparent paradigm change in the spatial development model of Chinese city regions. With the development focus shifting to large cities, the roles and development patterns of small towns have changed. The bottom-up, self-organised and dispersed development models th...

随着全球气候变化和海平面上升,世界范围内的滨海城市均面临着越来越多的洪水威胁.除了这些普遍存在的危机,中国滨海城市还正在经历着由快速城市化引发的淡水资源过度开发以及由此带来的土地沉降等问题.传统的水资源管理方法在应对与水相关的问题时,往往关注于技术层面的解决方案,或者依赖于集中式的基础设施系统,已无法完全应对当前所面临的这些新的挑战.受目前欧洲国家关于"与水共生"新思路的研究影响,试图为中国滨海城市建立一个基于可持续综合水系统的生态规划方法研究框架.

Making Room for People elaborates on preferences in housing. It explores how users, occupants, and citizens can express their needs, searching for the enhancement of individual choice and control over their residential environment, and the predicted positive spin-off’s for urban collectives. The central question is: What are the conditions under...

The earth-quake happened on May 12th, 2008 in Sichuan Province is one of the most catastrophic disasters in the history of China, which has damaged the physical environment as well as the socio-economic vitality of the areas affected. In those historic cities/ towns affected by the earthquake, Urban Heritage Tourism is being considered as a main st...

After World War II, most of the countries made great efforts to promote the construction of social housing. These post-war neighborhoods played essential roles in the time of housing shortage immediately after the war, while have been facing the problems of decay since 1980s. This paper will use two post-war districts- Zuidwijk in Rotterdam and San...

本文分析了全球化背景下历史城市旧城绅士化现象及其背后的社会经济成因.文章通过对西方绅士化现象起因的理论综述,探讨绅士化现象为旧城更新带来的机遇与挑战,提出了作为旧城保护与更新策略的适度绅士化概念,并以北京旧城作为实例进一步阐述了旧城更新过程中的社会公正原则和面向社会目标的引导型城市管理手段.

In 2009, the 4 Conference of the International Forum on Urbanism (IFoU) takes place in Amsterdam and Delft under the title 'The New Urban Question – Urbanism beyond Neo-Liberalism'. The conference aims to rediscover the discipline of urban planning and design under the recent conditions of rapid urbanisation and urban transformation, ecological thr...

This paper analyses how the Olympic Games have been integrated into the spatial planning process to reach social, spatial and environmental objectives since the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. It will focus on the motives for hosting the Games, on the urban development strategies to implement the formulated motives and the effects which are expected...

De Montfort University, Leicester and Delft University of Technology were commissioned by the National Housing and Planning Advice Unit (NHPAU) to review European planning systems. In the light of a low elasticity of housing supply in England, NHPAU wished to understand the role of planning systems in facilitating and constraining housing productio...

Spatial decentralisation has been a planning goal for Beijing city since 1950s. It had not been fully activated until the mid-1990s, when the suburbanisation process started to accelerate rapidly. Under the influence of joint forces of top-down intervention and market-driven development, several large-scale peripheral clusters and new towns have be...

This paper tries to propose a sustainable urban form (regarding compactness and mobility) for the Beijing Metropolitan Area. The work is based on the idea that land use arrangement and transportation patterns may enhance each other, and all together form an urban structure, which reflects the socio-economic transformations of the human society. Spa...

For the city of Beijing, extensively losing farmland in the periphery and socio-spatial segregation happening in central urban area are main environmental and social problems being criticized as unsustainable and considered to a great extent correlated to sprawl and intensification. This paper will try to analyse the socio-economic forces behind th...

北京旧城历史居住区的衰败问题是由政策-经济原因引发的社会-文化问题。全球化时代的北京作为世界性大城市，受到全球经济去工业化，信息技术革命等因素的影响，城市贫富分离的二元属性日趋明显。社会分层和居住区隔离现象直接影响到位于城市中心的历史居住区，强化了其中低收入人口聚居 的边缘化现状。而这一社会结构现状也抑制了其良性发展的可能性。同时，城市中高收入阶层正在形成，在历史文化保护区以保护和修缮为主的政策出台之后，旧城历史居住区面临着以人口置换和功能置换为表现形式的绅士化趋势，这将改变当地居民的社会结构状况。居民社会结构的变迁关系到传统物质环境的保护和传统文化的延续问题，并且会影响到历史居住区的活力。本文目的即在于以全球化时代为背景，以保护旧城历史居住区这一居住形态为前提，探讨其合理的居民社会结构以及...

作为一个高人口密度、土地匮乏的国家，荷兰为居民创造安全、多样化，并且具有吸引力 的城市居住环境的经验对于全球化背景下，我国城市住宅发展和城市更新建设具有很好的借鉴意义。本文主要介绍了荷兰政府和社会住宅机构共同推动的社会住宅政策，以及这些社会住宅如何保障了社会低收入群体的居住质量，如何实现了贫、富社会阶层的整合，如何促进了历史街区的保护等经验。

1990年代,全球资本越来越具有流动性,而这些资本对于城市发展具有重大意义,越来越多的城市之间展开竞争以吸引投资.近期北京许多城市发展项目都与这种竞争相联系,例如,机场的扩建,CBD及其他位于城区内的写字楼群等.这些项目不仅用来满足城市功能的需要,还与决策者希望在短时间内提升城市形象的想法有关.北京在2000年前后曾大规模地粉刷城市沿街建筑,促进北京申奥的成功,也是对于全球资本反应的一个例子.

The municipal government of Beijing is implementing intensive urban revitalization programmes in the inner city area to improve living condition for the people living in dilapidated courtyard houses. This paper will study the cultural value of Beijing's courtyard houses as reflected in the evolution of this housing type as well as the process of in...

北京的皇城毗邻和簇拥着故宫, 成为整个北京城的核心, 其地位不容忽视. 目前皇城边界的弱化使得皇城与整个旧城区逐渐融为一体, 历史上宫城-皇城-外城的 3 个布局层次逐渐过渡为宫城-外城的两个层次. 这种层次的减少将有可能使皇城的历史价值被贬低. 本文意图从皇城物质环境的变迁中发掘皇城在过去和未来所具有的不同层面的价值, 并对其保护提出一些看法.

町屋是日本城市的传统居住及商业性建筑, 与世界上所有其他民族的传统民居一样具有自身的地方特色和美学价值. 由于各种原因, 町屋的数量在逐渐减少, 尤其在东京这样的大都市里几乎已经消失殆尽. 本文主要介绍了京都的町屋以及町屋街区的空间和社会文化特色, 以及京都市在町屋保护和再生方面的政策措施.