COURTLY LIFE.

Much of traditional Beijing has been destroyed by pressures of booming population and economic growth. Developed with the inhabitants, this scheme evokes traditional social and spatial patterns for a more affluent age.

ONCE UPON A TIME, BEIJING CONSISTED OF extraordinary monuments like the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven set in an intricate matrix of low-rise courtyard housing knitted together by a ravelled pattern of lanes (hutong) and carved into districts by the vast imperial grid. Throughout this century, the precious pattern has been eroded by technology, population pressure, professional hubris, increasing prosperity, and of course politics. The great buildings remain, on the whole miraculously intact and much cherished again after the Cultural Revolution. But the matrix has been terribly eroded.

Round the massive palace, there is a zone in which building heights are controlled. Beyond that, there is an apparent free-for-all in which clumsy heavy concrete towers and slabs based on outdated Modern and Post-Modern models accommodate Beijing's exploding population and its workplaces. Concrete is invading even the low-rise zone of the Old City in insensitive patches which have absolutely nothing in common with the old fabric. Yet there are desperate problems with much of the ancient tissue.

Overcrowding has always been a problem, but it has increased greatly in the last few decades, particularly since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, when the courtyards began to fill up with shelters for people who had lost their accommodation: light and fresh air became much reduced. Professor Wu Liangyong led a survey of the Ju'er Hutong (Chrysanthemum Lane) neighbourhood in the '80s which showed that residents had an average of only 5.2[m.sup.2] of covered space each. Two thirds of the dwellings did not get sunlight; lavatories were l00m away. Over 80 per cent of the site was covered by buildings. Some courtyards were below street level, so they were often flooded by summer rain. As a result of such studies, the masterplan for the Beijing Municipality envisaged retaining only three per cent of the millions of traditional low-rise dwellings.

But Wu and his team from the Tsinghua University Institute of Architecture and Urban Studies were determined to try to save as much of the fabric of Ju'er Hutong as possible, and that interventions should respect and enhance traditional patterns. They wanted to make the 8.2ha neighbourhood a model for urban regeneration which would be replicable throughout the old city. Wu's team evolved a physical, social and political strategy intended to preserve the best of the old buildings, trees and spaces, to replace delapidated housing and to evolve new forms of housing which could relate to the old, yet allow modern amenities.

AN ELABORATE FUNDING system was set up which involved injections of cash from employers, subsidies from the government and municipality (at this time most people with state-provided flats expected to live virtually free), and outright purchase by richer people. So, for instance, existing inhabitants pay 350 yuan [m.sup.2], while incomers pay between 2500 to 3000 yuan [m.sup.2]. Because of the massive overcrowding, two thirds of the original population had to leave the site (to better accommodation than they were found in). Original residents made up over 40 per cent of the initial population of the first phase of the project.

New housing types vary between two and three storeys (the original houses had one or two floors). High density was one of the aims (the floor to site area ratio is 1:1.32), but terraces and galleries allow much more outdoor space than the traditional pattern. Interlocked and varied flat plans allow a mix of accommodation, and flexible generation of courts which respect saved trees and buildings. In section, the two- and three-storey buildings allow lofts under pitched roofs to be converted into rooms and partly submerged basements to be used for many activities, including bicycle stores, offices and even temporary accommodation for people displaced by building activities. And, as Wu points out, low-rise buildings do not require large-sized construction machinery. Rather they provide opportunities for appropriate technology. Compared with highrise buildings much of the maintenance cost will be saved.'

Maintenance is partly dealt with by the local community, which has, according to post-occupancy evaluation studies, settled easily into the intricate network of courts and alleys. Wu was anxious that his experiment should seem welcoming and familiar, and though construction is brick and concrete, rather than traditional brick and timber, new work is made to look as much like old as possible, with the same kinds of grey bricks and tiles, white render and carefully considered spatial connections, gateways between courts. Such traditional styling emerged partly from prolonged consultation with the community and proposed inhabitants.

But the morphology and typology of Ju'er Hutong can be models for future developments which do not follow old appearance so literally. The Ju'er Hutong neighbourhood ought to be an inspiration to the rest of China, and indeed to many other similar places, east and west.