1. Inborn Corner Garden – The site is at the southeast corner of Shou’er Community along the boundary wall. Considering that overgrown weeds are spreading, open space is illegally occupied with drying racks and the general physical appearance is decrepit, we proposed a new community garden with a total area of 360 SQM, the CORNER garden. Regarding community planning, the Shou’er community built in the 1990s, where the CORNER garden is now situated, is one of the two areas that possess clear and coherent spatial layouts in the Hudong Sub-district, the other is Hudong and Huyi Community which were built in the 1950s.
The architectural layout of Shou’er Community comes out of the design principles of “south and north orientation gives the best sun exposure” and “tilted rectangular footprint generates integrated space”, which contribute to the final shape of Shou’er Community, a courtyard-style cluster with 90 and 45 degrees of orientation. This layout naturally produces a series of triangular spaces, which currently function as parking, public facility room, green space, small plaza, etc. The site of the CORNER garden is one of these triangular spaces, so we named it after its triangular spatial character naturally, the CORNER garden.
2. Renew the Streetscape with the CORNER Garden inside the Community – The CORNER garden is a part of the Hudong Experiment which VIASCAPE proposed with the Hudong Sub-district Office. During on-site research, we learned that residents strongly hope to have drying racks in the updated garden. And they do not want to implant overly dynamic activities in a quiet garden.
In our regeneration strategy, the drying racks should be the primary visual and functional element, which is not merely a structure but an object that defines the space and a triangular gallery for recreation. We then marry the boundary wall and the triangular gallery, making part of the wall recess by 1 meter inwardly to form a zigzag interface that also creates recreational space toward Shouguang Road. The final design will improve the street view by showing the renovated garden from the inner side. Furthermore, the transparent glass brick wall will let the blurred street light project into the community garden, creating an interesting dynamic picture to improve psychological safety at the very corner of the community at night. Renewing the streetscape with a garden which is inside a community is the key experimental point in the design of the CORNER garden and the foundation of detailed spatial construction.
3. Design Based on the Environmental Genes – Our design makes the CORNER garden consist of two parts. One is a green space adjacent to the community’s secondary driveway. We arranged a combination of lawns and trees to block the view from the vehicular road and parking space, making the garden more like a front garden in a typical contemporary apartment complex development. The other is the one close to the boundary wall. We stitched small-scale functional zones and pedestrians with trees, creating relatively independent recreational space under the tree canopies. The installation of the drying rack was also incorporated into the structure of the white gallery built partially on the base of the boundary wall, forming the basic spatial layout of the garden.
We design the CORNER garden with two sets of grids weaving together with angles of 90° and 45° according to the Shou’er community’s spatial genes. We followed the grids with a 2x2M module to create the layout, optimizing the simple assembled design with tree pits and seating benches. Terracotta brick which has the same color as the boundary wall is the main material in the garden to create a warm vibe. Glass brick is also employed in the boundary wall to capture dynamic light and shadow from Shouguang Road.
4. Problems and Possibilities – If the closer bird’s-eye view of the Shou’er community is taken, three aspects of the main problems will be revealed, which are usually neglected. Firstly, multiple triangular outdoor spaces updated at different times are very different from each other in the of spatial composition and material selection. Except for the CORNER garden, which is renewed based on its context, the appearance of other spaces does not fit into Shou’er Community’s spatial character. Some typical examples include:
The triangular plaza situated in the middle east of the community is too concentrated and utilized with low efficiency, which may result in a large volume of noise from the crowd. The relatively small triangular green space at the north side of the public service complex located in the middle west of the community is designed with weird complex curvy lines.
Secondly, we can see that the relevant management departments and grassroots governments have paid huge efforts to solve the problem of parking difficulties in old residential areas, there are still a certain number of scattered nonparking and vehicle access areas that can be optimized and sorted out, such as using some scattered spaces as green spaces and increasing the green volume of the community.
Thirdly, the sloped roof has a fragmented color tone with the main blue colors and some spotted grey colors. This might result from different materials used in multiple renovation projects in the past years. These mixed-colored roofs will be viewed as an ugly background for the residents from high floors and the adjacent high-rise buildings.
Obviously, these issues are not merely the specific problems of any single community but are generic for most communities. From a citywide perspective, Shanghai has always been concerned about the renovation and upgrading of old residential areas. However, fiscal funds are usually allocated in different batches over time. Some even involve different administrative departments. This will build up challenges like the continuity of spatial utilization approach, material detailing, etc. At the same time, a typical repair application still follows the traditional procedure. Considering the existing situation, we suggest community planners and qualified professional design teams should play a more critical role with a more complete perspective of time, space, and expertise in improving the environmental quality of the old communities according to the “community planner” system in Shanghai.
Cite: “the CORNER garden / VIASCAPE design” 14 Apr 2025. ArchDaily. Accessed .
