Page 77 - JCAU-5-3

Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism Spatial scale plasticity of urban residential areas

large residential quarters reaching more than ten hectares from door to door; with a slowdown of infection spread,
and small residential quarters with only two or three medium or large-scale units can be used to hold activities of
buildings. For residential quarters, having a scale that is varying degrees of freedom for the residents.
too large will increase the difficulty and management cost, For the scale of the enclosed units, we consider
while having a scale that is too small will make it difficult to two aspects. The scale should be conducive to precise
match the basic service function and public activity space management, allowing flexibility for the large combination
requirements. If the same management approach is adopted of small-scale living spaces. However, factors such as
regardless of the scale and population size, it may lead to economy, safety, convenience, and daylight requirements
failure of prevention and control or secondary disasters.
Thus, we consider the flexibility and plasticity of the scale should be considered. We can refer to the concept of open
of the residential quarters in the design. From a household, residential quarter planning. According to the principles
an enclosed unit, to a combination of multiple enclosed of New Urbanism, to ensure a coherent and uninterrupted
units, the model allows the scale of the residential area to street space, the scale of the block should be limited to 600
vary. The management units are based on flexible spatial feet (183 meters) in length and 1800 feet (549 meters) in
units designed to better accommodate management policies circumference (Zhou & Qian, 2017). Rudlin & Falk (1999)
(Figure 11). For example, in the early stages of the pandemic, believe that the ideal block length scale is between 70 and
small-scale units can be used to limit the spread of infections 90 meters, which creates an orderly connection to the
surrounding roads. According to the Chinese Planning and
Design Standards for Urban Residential Areas (Ministry
of Housing and Urban-Rural Development of The People’s
Republic of China, & State Quality Supervision Bureau,
2016), urban roads should be integrated with the layout of
residential quarters. The intervals of roads should not be
more than 300 m but rather in the range of 150–250 m. In
summary, we propose that a reasonable enclosed unit size
should be 0.6–1 hectare, for 120–200 people, in 4–6 floors.
4.2. Spatial mode
According to the four objectives mentioned above, we
propose the following spatial mode of management units.
First, to consider privacy, the enclosed building is taken
as the basic unit, with 0.6–1 hectare and 120–200 people
as the basic scale. Second, to consider mobility, the line
Figure 10. Spatial accessibility concept analysis. Source: Drawings by the of logistics and human flow is designed with diversion.
authors Third, to consider accessibility, more attention is paid
to the conversion of community medical, shelter, living
necessities, and basic activity space during an epidemic.
Fourth, to consider plasticity, a flexible and diverse spatial
scale of the residential community is formed by using the
composable residential space as the unit.
Based on the consideration of different spatial
relationships between the enclosed residential quarters,
four basic prototypes of spatial combinations that suit
environmental characteristics of different sites are
summarized proposed. The first prototype is the basic
model. For two adjacent buildings enclosed to form a
living space, the basic model can be combined to form
a larger-scale living unit, which can also be regarded as
a larger-scale management unit (Figure 12A). Second,
considering the plasticity brought by public activity space
Figure 11. Spatial plasticity concept analysis. Source: Drawings by the and green space to the basic living unit, a shared activity
authors space is added to the basic model, which can be a green

Volume 5 Issue 3 (2023) 8 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.1242