Related stories

Olympic Venue Construction Progressing Smoothly Olympic Stadium Stands on its Own Olympic Pictograms Convey the Passion of Sport Olympic Flame Kindles Demand for 5-Star Serviced Apartments Olympic Marketing

Olympic Legacy

International city planners and urban designers say Beijing's in no danger of being a post-Olympic white elephant, as some critics have suggested. Far from it says the San Francisco urban design firm, EDAW Incorporated. It's a matter of legacy.

Daragh Moller explains.

Visitors to Beijing, not least architects, urban planners and landscape specialists, say they experience China's capital as a city of contrasts.

But in the short sprint to transform the old Beijing into a new Beijing, where eagerness for the city's future is contagiously competitive, is enough thought being put into what lies on the other side of the 2008 Olympic Games? Will the city forever after remain a monument to the efforts of the 2008 transformative dash?

Michael Erickson, managing principal of San Francisco-based EDAW Incorporated's Beijing office, said he doesn't think so, adding, "Beijing's Olympic legacy, its 'gift to the city,' will transcend the Olympic moment."

EDAW, one of the world's foremost urban design, environmental and landscape planning firms, is the lead consultant on Beijing's 500 million yuan (US$62.33 million) 2008 Olympic Aquatic Park project. The canoe and kayak events for the 29th Olympiad will be held on this 302-hectare site on the Chaobai River in Shunyi District.

From the first sight of Beijing's tightly knit urban grain of the local hutong laneways and traditional siheyuan courtyard homes that are its heart, to the city's wide open boulevards, where monumental buildings make dramatic, monolithic statements at some distance from the road, Beijing is revealed as a city at once incredibly old and incalculably modern.

From the city's ubiquitous tower-block housing in sprawling suburbs that creep ever gradually out across the countryside, to the rich intermingling of contemporary social and economic uses found in the development of a new generation of downtown projects, it is also a city whose growth continues to confound expectations. And, because of this, it is a city filled with incredible challenges.

To these challenges and diversity Beijing is attracting some of the world's leading authorities on architecture and urban planning, specialists in urban regeneration, landscape planning and urban design. These are global players keen to play a part in the historic transformation of the capital city of one of the world's largest nations at a specific and spectacular moment in its history, a moment known locally as "2008."

EDAW is one such player.

"Beijing--and much of urban China for that matter--is experiencing the effects of a seismic transition from rural to urban households and lifestyles. With strong economic growth and rising incomes, people are seeking more convenient, high-amenity lifestyles, with efficient public transportation and greater access to cultural and entertainment facilities," said Erickson.

An urban catalyst, the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games has ignited explosive growth in the city, raising issues of sustainability and urban legacy, key issues that emerge for urban centres in transition.

"For Beijing, that legacy will be improved and more sustainable urban amenities and public transportation, the addition of major parklands and 'green lungs,' world-class sporting facilities and an improved tourism infrastructure,'' said Erickson.

EDAW has been doing projects in China for 15 years, first opening a China office in 1999. They have operated an office in Beijing since 2001. EDAW's clients in China are typically city governments, urban developers and provincial authorities. They have been involved in urban projects all across China including a high-profile regeneration project around Jinji Lake in New Suzhou, not far from Shanghai.

EDAW employs a comprehensive DEEP (Design, Economic, Environment and Planning) strategy in their urban projects, when possible. A typical project team might include experts in master planning, economic assessment, community planning, urban design, landscape design, infrastructure design and environmental planning.

EDAW has been involved in the planning and landscaping of water and other sport venues for the Olympic Games since 1976, when they helped initiate the concept of post-Olympic legacies in a planned conversion of the Montreal Olympic swimming complex into an indoor and outdoor water park.

CEO Joe Brown said: "EDAW is an idea-driven firm, whether the ideas come from science, planning or design. Our challenge is to demonstrate the best that can be done."

Brown knows what he's talking about. EDAW is leading the Masterplan Team for the London 2012 Olympic Games, likely to be the highest-profile project in the landscape and environmental design firm's 65-year history.

Urban planning came relatively late to China. The economic reform and opening up that began in the 1980s in China became a sizeable catalyst for change in urban conditions, beginning with housing reform and the introduction of market-oriented housing. Although somewhat removed from its 19th century Western origins, urban planning models have been instrumental in the successful growth of China's cities since then. This has been partly out of a need to deal with the sheer size of a huge urban population, now expected to hit 576 million (from a total of 1.417 billion) by 2015.

Suburbs tackled inner city congestion by replacing traditional siheyuan with suburban housing rented to workers by State work units. Before that time, urban planning in China followed the function model of socialist planning of the time. Urban planning was then seen as a technology necessary for promoting socialist ideas and intentions within an urban setting.

Today, the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning monitors and oversees the growth of the city, with the 2008 Olympic Games serving as the most notable catalyst for change in its urban environment.

"In major world cities that have experienced a high level of urban regeneration, a blend of protection, renovation and sensitive urban planning has proven to be the most successful formula," said Erickson.

In urban centres around the world, particularly in countries where urban development is fast and considered perhaps somewhat environmentally reckless, organisations such as EDAW play an important role in educating and disseminating new ways of thinking about urban environments. They educate as they work using sustainable ecological theories, complimented by already established environmental impact assessment strategies. Part of the role also played by consultative planning organisations like EDAW is in promoting new concepts for uses of urban space.

Mary Padua of the University of Hong Kong writes in Landscape Architecture: "Nations such as China and India are witnessing explosive growth, rapid increases in urbanisation and mounting pressures on open space."

It is not surprising then, since Asia is home to 17 of the world's 25 largest cities, that when change comes, it comes quickly. An increase in leisure time, more abundant opportunities for a rising middle class and growing expectations have all played a part in changing attitudes about what China's urban inhabitants want from a city they live in.

"Designers have an important role to play in the future of these societies, helping to preserve useable open space and to create liveable environments," says Padua.

Successful land development programmes have shown that landscaping urban space is an effective way to attract investment; land values and land use are key factors in developing the value of a given piece of land and its urban space.

"These factors, together with the 'spotlight of the world'that in 2008 will be shining on Beijing, and to a lesser degree the growing public discussion on ways to achieve sustainable growth, drive much of the urban regeneration that Beijing and much of the rest of China is undergoing."

Stretching out across the third floor of the Beijing Planning Exhibition Hall off Tian'anmen Square, a scale model of the city reveals a new Beijing arising on, within and around the old, a model of timeless harmony that is being adjusted over time.

"All recent Olympic Games have their own distinctive 'legacy' plan, or built-in characteristics that respond to and reflect particular cultural, economic, environmental and social needs or aspirations," said Erickson. This is a factor likely to ensure that Beijing's Olympics-oriented urban adjustments will be easier and more lasting.