Abstract
Cities are facing crowding all around the world and it becomes essential to maximize space utilization, especially in urban areas. With the increasing of bridges, more and more “gray space” under bridge emerges. These “gray space” can often become a hotbed of “broken window effect” in urban environment establishment. The design and utilization of space under bridge should be an important content of efficient utilization of urban space and optimization of urban environmental quality, However, the available designs of space under bridge are mostly simple transformation into parking lots, parks or public toilets which can offer some basic public services, and take few account of uniqueness and space utilization efficiency. Kevin Lynch (1984) studied on the space under bridge and raised his concept of the space utilization in his book, Good City Form. Lynch thought the bridges in urban areas should be designed in a more natural way and utilized the space properly. Nannan Zhao (2020) took the urban area of Wuhan as an example, and proposed strategies and suggestions for the utilization of space under bridge, which will help improve the quality and vitality of the space and create high-quality and efficient service-oriented city. It can be seen that previous studies mainly focused on the functionality of the space under bridge, while seldom considered about how to integrate with the local community. Since bridges are more and more common in urban areas, it may be important to add these “gray space” into contemporary community space, which requires planners pay more attention to the inclusiveness in design. Thus, in our design, we considered more about all-aged requirements in community to turn the “gray space” into an all-aged space complex. This paper presents a planning design of the space under bridge in the community with concepts of stereoscopic, inclusive and livable, and takes full consideration of local community demand to build up a sense of community. Following our research on community age structure, space scale under bridge, bridge structure safety and community facilities around, we divided the space under bridge into 4 parts: a LEGOLAND for children, a plastic track for socializing, a fitness area for exercise and a business district alongside the bridge. Also, we used much modern technology such as smart bookstore, intelligent trail, sensor lights and stereo greening to change the “gray space” into dynamic and habitable community outdoor areas, which helps to avoid the “broken window effect” of the “gray space”, as well as relieve the shortage of public space in urban communities. This planning creates an “all-aged space complex” for community members, and is innovative in urban leftover space exploitation, inclusiveness in all-aged residents and community empowerment, and provides reference for increasing demand of exploitation of the space under bridge in the community. References: 1. Kevin Lynch, Good City Form, The MIT Press, 1984 2. Nannan Zhao, Research on Utilization of Space Under Urban Viaduct Under the Sharing Conception, Urbanism and Architecture,2020
