[Urbanism] Metropolitan Park Development, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 2007-2008 (2)

From a Deserted Backyard to an Appealing Front Garden

In the urban planning field of Taiwan, there is lacking of consideration of non-urban planned area, rural area. Normally, it just a place for agriculture, nature and the lands waiting for being urbanized. When the urbanization pressure keeps pushing the in-between cities area, this force has gradually transformed the agriculture and nature landscape into a fragmental pieces of lands. With low economic benefit and uncertain future, farmers gradually stop farming and look for substitute jobs. Without thorough consideration, the small industries just established their factories in this in-between area. Although the one of these two city municipalities is planning to expand the city boundary toward to the river, a better considered plan should be generated in the regional scale. This site has to be defined.

Flooding Risk vs Water shortage

A serious problem caused by the urbanization is flooding risk. When the hard ground has kept expanding, the rainfall just flows through the city and flood the adjacent rural area. In the meantime, the water shortage of High-Tech industries in this region also compress the development of agriculture culture activities. The priority of water supply just belongs to the High-Tech industries.

Under these conditions, I started from defining the Regional Open Space and providing a regional perspective which is Metropolitan Park Strategy. This strategy is generated from the idea of Green Belt, Green Heart and Green Way Strategy. Once in the past, the in-between site was just the backyard of both cities where located the unpleasant industries and without careful planning. Now I try to seek the potential elements of landscape hided behind this messed situation to re-frame the landscape and city structure thus is able to avoid the unexpected developments might worsen the eco-system of this region. Keywords: Landscape Framework, Urban Extension Boundary Definition, Flooding Risk, In-between Cities Area, Paddy Field Patterns

To be continued...