Rethinking walled residential compound in peripheral urban China : a guideline for boundary and size design

Abstract

In the last two decades, with the high speed urbanization, walled residential compound as the typical housing development is being constructed on a large scale in peripheral areas of Chinese cities. Its self-enclosing nature and large scale bring some negative aspects to the city and the community itself, such as traffic congestion, inconvenience of public transportation, lack of street life, redundancy and exclusiveness of public amenities. However, the existence of enclosing perimeter has its historical context and contemporary causes. Instead of completely rejecting "walled community" as a viable typology, this thesis aims to develop a guideline that can transform the "wall" and to arrive at an optimum semi-walled residential compound typology.