Project Background

“China’s Urban Culture Going Global” Program was held by the Shanghai Foreign Publicity Office in 2021. Our Urban Lab proposed to use Suzhou Creek as an example to tell stories of Shanghai to the world, and was successfully listed for the program.

Project Summary

This project aims to study the urban ecology, urban design and international urban comparison on Suzhou Creek.  Evaluate, analyze and compare the river-side reconstruction of Suzhou Creek from the perspectives of ecological sustainability, urban and architectural design and social activities.  

• Analyze and evaluate the space-time and social characteristics of Suzhou Creek of the past, present and future;  
• Provide some suggestions for Shanghai‘s future urban development from the perspective of the city’s urban development, combining with the features of Chinese urban culture; 
• Comprehensive international references comparison and promotion of Chinese culture, urban development and historical inheritance; 

Project Publicity Direction

• Publish two Chinese-English bilingual books on Suzhou Creek:  “In touch with Suzhou Creek - Comparative Studies”, and a picture book, “Suzhou Creek Metabolism”.  
• Participate in architectural design projects with the support of the international platform of NYU Shanghai Urban Lab: Pocket Space along Suzhou Creek. Organize joint design teams with high international participation.  
• Through the NYU Shanghai Global Course, the curriculum includes conduct field trips for Chinese and foreign student joint teams to the Suzhou Creek; Propose design schemes with the background of Chinese culture and modern life; Opinions and publicity will be solicited online through the Domestic and international media as well as NYU's 15 campuses around the world. 

Project Impact

• Since the start of “Urbanization in China” in 2019, the course has attracted students from over 10 countries and regions. During the pandemic, international students also maintained their participation through online classes. A part of the results of the course is to improve the image of Suzhou Creek as the historical and cultural core of Shanghai through the designing and developing parts of the river-side space.
• As the core of the whole project, "Urbanization in China" and design experiments will run through the main work contents: The main principal of the course is the narration of Suzhou Creek in time, the comparison between China and foreign countries in space, and the development of the connotation in function. With this principal, the emphasis is on theoretical ecological research and practical architectural design.
• Conduct design experiments in cooperation with local governments. Taking Suzhou Creek as the background, propose design intervention of urban spaces. At the same time, consolidate the spatial dimension, time dimension, demography and instantaneous factors. During the project, architects, landscape architects, designers, urban residents, students and all personnel are invited to participate in, and carry out studies on the historical aspects of the project in cooperation with the NYU Shanghai Urban Lab.

Long Term Project Analysis 

• To create a design scheme with Chinese culture as the background and modern life as the guide;  
• The practice and implementation of the concept of sustainable, ecological development of Suzhou Creek;  
• Proposals for the partial and overall development of Shanghai's future city;  
• Take UAV photos of Suzhou Creek for archives and street view analysis;  
• Collect the stories of Suzhou Creek from different identities and age groups, to create a full image of Suzhou Creek.