With the development of commercial economy, people found that many streets with long history and traditional houses are disappearing. In Beijing, China, the preservation and reconstruction of the traditional house quadrangles have attracted many peopl...
With the development of commercial economy, people found that many streets with long history and traditional houses are disappearing. In Beijing, China, the preservation and reconstruction of the traditional house quadrangles have attracted many people’s attention. People are reconstructing the quadrangles in different ways, hoping that the economic, historic and cultural value of quadrangles can be well reflected. In order to realize the commercial value of quadrangles, most of the quadrangles are reconstructed as restaurants, hotels and commercial stores which are space with economic value. However, during the reconstruction of the quadrangles, there are problems like random demolition and construction, over modification, the inconformity with the historic outlook, the destruction of the historic and cultural constructions. These problems don’t match with the purpose of the coexistence of the economic value and historic value. In 2001, Beijing City released the Protection Plan of Historical and Cultural protection areas in 25 Districts in Beijing. In this protection plan, the quadrangles in these 25 districts of Beijing were divided into six kinds. They are cultural relics, kind that needs protection, kind that needs improvement, kind that needs preservation, kind needs renovation and kind that are decoration of the streets. Every quadrangle should be reconstructed according to laws and regulations. After regulating the reconstruction ways, the quadrangles still have to change from living space to commercial space or commercial and residential space.
However, in recent years, in the lanes of Beijing, quadrangles were reconstructed into small offices. The change from living space to working space also attracted many people. This analyzed and studied this emergence. First of all, under the premise that the Chinese government encourage entrepreneurship and support the development of small and medium-sized enterprises, many university graduates and part of the people with working experience choose to start their own business and establish their offices. In the beginning of the business, because of lack of fund and employees and the selection of working place, they give up the office buildings which need expensive rent and working place which were far form the city center and the living area and were built from old and abandoned factories. Secondly, because the protection and reuse of quadrangles become the hot issue that many people are paying attention to, the reconstruction from quadrangles into offices came into the entrepreneurs’ mind. Through field investigation of quadrangles, modifying the vacant quadrangles into offices became the unique way of changing the quadrangles from living space to commercial space. The mixed modes of space changing from living space to working space, to working and living space and to working and commercial space were well realized.
In this , five cases of reconstructing the quadrangles into small offices were conducted field investigation and analysis. These five cases in the Protection Plan of Historical and Cultural protection areas in 25 Districts in Beijing were case 1 the protected construction classified by the country, case 2, case 4, case 5 renovation constructions that can be renovated and dismantled, case 3 improved modern constructions with cultural value. Each case did some kind of modification according to laws and regulations. Through the reconstruction background of these 5 cases, the analysis results of the process and contents of reconstruction were as follows.
1) in these five cases, during the reconstruction, the culture of traditional construction of quadrangles was protected and preserved. Dilapidated quadrangles were repaired and the traditional outlook of quadrangles was recovered. Most importantly, after reconstruction, the cultural connotation of the traditional structure that the middle yard is the center and the lines go all around was retained.
2) the reconstruction subjects are residential quadrangles. However, because of the increase of residents and the disrepair for years, the deterioration of living environment, many residents moved out and the quadrangles became vacant houses. Before reconstruction, as for case 1, 2, 4, 5, residential quadrangles were divided into different spaces with different usage including living room, bedroom, study room and toilet. After reconstruction, according to the space usage, these small space were integrated, which made the inner space more simple and tidy and satisfied the demand of working space.
3) Like case 2, 4, 5, before reconstruction, the quadrangles consisted of several disperse space. After construction, according to the functions of the space, they were combined together with the similar space as center.
4) Like case 5, before reconstruction, according to the culture of traditional construction of quadrangles, with the middle yard as center, the houses around it are the quadrangles. The middle yard of the quadrangles play the central role. After construction, the central role of the middle yard changed to the role of assembly line. The middle yard consists of small sized yards.
It is hoped that the results of this in which the space energy transformation and reuse of the residential quadrangles were analyzed through field investigation and analysis of five cases can be helpful for similar studies. It is also hoped that through the proper reconstruction of the quadrangles in Beijing, the diversity development of the residential space of quadrangles can be promoted and the purpose of the coexistence of both historic, cultural and economic value of the quadrangles.
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