Built to Scale: China's Rapidly Accelerated Shift from a Rural to an Urban Society is Spurring Creative Multi-Housing Design

Brought to you by

Built to Scale: China's Rapidly Accelerated Shift from a Rural to an Urban Society is Spurring Creative Multi-Housing Design

By Robert Wright, American Society of Interior Designers

JANUARY 09, 2006 -- "The U.S. may build buildings, but China builds cities." Although I had heard this phrase before, it was never so apparent until I traveled to the city of Ningbo, located in the Chinese province of Zhejiang. Ningbo-which lies on the coast of the East China Sea and has a population of five million people-was the site of a China Institute of Interior Designers' annual conference. I was there representing the American Society of Interior Designers and had the chance to visit with many Chinese counterparts attending the four-day event.

Although I was expecting to encounter some cultural and professional differences, it did not take me long to realize that we, as designers, had more in common than not. The Chinese interior designer is no different from my associates here in the U.S. We all want to provide ideal design solutions to enhance the quality of life for people in our rapidly changing world. I could not think of a better country to be in to contemplate cultural, social and economic changes-and how those considerations will affect future housing design.

One event I attended was a builders' and developers' exposition held at Ningbo's large convention center. The entire hall was filled with hundreds of architectural models of proposed new housing projects for the city. Each proposed project was not just a single condo building; it was more typical to see clusters of 12 to 24 towers per development. Walking through the expo, I gained a new appreciation for the need for multi-housing to accommodate China's rapidly accelerated cultural shift from a rural society to a more urbanized one.

Between 1949 and 1979, little housing was added to the Chinese market, while the population grew from 400 million to one billion. Now, with some 10 million Chinese moving into cities from the country each year, China has an aggressive five-year program to build cities and residential housing in order to meet demand. China needs to add some 500 million square meters of new residential buildings each year. In Beijing alone, there is a need to add 10 million square meters of housing annually. At this pace, by 2010, China will have nearly 200 cities with populations of one million or more. Combined urban population in 2010 is expected to be over 600,000 million, about 45 percent of China's total.

China's residential developments tend to be either commodity housing sold at market prices, mostly to higher-income households, or affordable housing sold at government-controlled prices. Most housing projects I reviewed were multi-story condominiums. To first look at the exterior design of the buildings, you would not see anything much different from what you may see in any Western-style condominium project. From a construction standpoint, most are built of brick with concrete slab floors and columns or of lightly reinforced concrete with partition walls of unreinforced brick. Steel and wood are not used for the most part due to high costs and scarcities.

Although the building fa�ades were similar to ours, the interior planning of the residences was quite different. In looking over the space plans in the marketing brochures provided at the exposition, my first observation was the sheer size of the typical one-bedroom condominium. It was quite a bit smaller than what would be considered desirable in the U.S. market. One full-scale model on display was of a two-level, one-bedroom unit that was about 500 square feet.

Upon entering, I immediately noticed that the width was only 12 feet, but the space was very well designed for efficiency. The overall aesthetic was quite modern, with clean, smooth surfaces and light, airy furnishings. The kitchen-similar in nearly all of the different plans on display-was in a closed, separate room. The plan also had enough space for dining for two and lounge seating for three. Upstairs accommodated a bedroom with an adjacent home office area.

Despite the larger size of some units, all the space plans had very small, mostly enclosed kitchens. Bathrooms were designed more for utility than luxury, and closets were proportionately less than what we would see in Western layouts. The compartmentalized plans were in contrast to open plans we find so desirable in the U.S.

Reflecting on what I saw in China, I could not help comparing it to the current condo market in the U.S. What lessons could we learn for the future as our own housing needs change? As our population increases, how will we develop new housing solutions? Recent statistics show that 51 percent of households here have only one occupant. With more Americans living alone, there will be a need for smaller, more affordable condos.

Well-designed, shared spaces such as lobbies, community rooms, gyms and corridors will make buildings more desirable. As our population ages, providing safety and security will be primary concerns. Universal, accessible designs and space plans that offer safety and security will allow older Americans to maintain their independence. Locating new developments closer to city centers will give rise to urban villages that provide easy access to goods and services, as well as mass transit and pedestrian walkways.

With soaring real estate prices and diminishing natural resources, our own residences will more than likely also reduce in size, but not in the quality of our design solutions. In the U.S., we may not be known for "building cities," but perhaps we can take a cue from the Chinese and instead of building just a building, we will build more livable urban communities.