Jinan, Shandong Province: official work begins

The first thing that struck me about Jinan is the low visibility. It is so smoggy it is difficult to see a few blocks away at times. The haze tops anything Los Angeles can drum up, well maybe on par with LA in the 70's from what I've heard. It has a lot of redeeming factors though, one being it's natural springs. We walked through a traditional 'hutong' (alleyways) neighborhood and wound our way through all the narrow alleys to a pool where locals were enjoying an afternoon swim. We also visited Baotu Spring which is a beautiful park combining gardens, springs and pools, bridges, temples and traditional architecture.

We split into our work groups to visit our assigned neighborhoods of study. My group studied the old commercial center that was built in the 1920's, other groups studied a traditional hutong neighborhoods, a 1980's enclave, an in-progress high-rise development. We all go to see the model homes for the high-rises (which are highly sought after, very expensive, and by a reputable developer) and were appalled at the horrible construction and tackiness. Cheap laminate covered much of the surfaces that was already becoming warped, the bathroom tiles and grouting were of the quality in which you would immediately fire your contractor and promptly do it yourself 10x better. It was really frightening to see that these are the models which are supposed to entice people by how beautiful they are. The first phase of a the project which was built less than 10 years ago from the outside looked in poor shape and reminded us of a public housing project in the US of the tower-in-a-park type that are mostly demolished by now.

We studied these various neighborhoods to get an idea of what exists in China, how people live, what works well and what doesn't. Our group split into smaller teams and I went with my Chinese-speaking partner to talk to people all over the neighborhood. It was really fun exploring the area and talking to residents despite my lack of communication. We spent the afternoon doing this, then topped it off with some mushroom-stuffed buns, fennel-filled pancakes, pearl milk tea, and local fresh beer. We continued the investigation the following morning before we rejoined the class to visit some more sites in Jinan.

The city of Jinan has created a master plan to manage its growth and [re]development, which consists of a street network with widths of arterials about 50 meters wide and Le Courbousier style towers speckling the landscape along superblocks. High-rises and gigantic streets are the way China has been developing as it demolishes the traditional neighborhoods with their small-grain urban fabric. Because of the a/c, heating, ventilation, elevators, lighting demands, and other mechanical systems as well as the auto-dependent zoning they are designing, the new neighborhoods are far more energy-consumptive than the previous. Considering China's population and increasing affluence, this model is destined to fail miserably. Furthermore if everyone in China owned a car and actually needed it on a daily basis, a highway that covered the entire city of Beijing would not be wide enough. Fortunately, China is very interested in looking at new models for neighborhood development and low-energy designs which is why the department of energy has funded our project. We are looking at ways of designing neighborhoods that have all the modern conveniences but require less land area and energy than the current practices while still retaining the vibrant social life and cohesive communities that are characteristic of traditional neighborhoods.

In our tour around Jinan, we saw swaths of rubble and wrecking balls in action making way for new high-rises, train stations, massive highway flyovers, and glistening shopping malls. It must look a lot like major cities in the US did during the urban renewal era of large-scale neighborhood demolition and inner-city interstate highway construction (except China also invests in rail). Many people displaced by redevelopment here cannot afford to live in the new buildings and many developments remain up to 50% vacant as speculators buy up units for investment rather than as a residence. It may be counterintuitive but China is ultra-capitalist, with seemingly less regulations and restrictions than in the US and the class divide seems to be increasing accordingly. Gone are the comrades, here to stay are the proletariat and bourgeoisie of modern China. It will be a very different place 10 years from now, as I'm sure it was 10 years ago.

After a 3 hour train ride to Beijing, we checked into our apartments in the international student dorms at Tsinghua University (the MIT of the East) and worked all the following day and into the night on our neighborhood analysis of energy and livability. On Friday, we formally presented our findings to the class in a presentation.

I had been getting sick ever since arriving in Jinan and by the time of the presentation was feeling awful. I had a fever and was wearing a sweater while everyone else was sweltering in the 'all the fans are broken' architecture studio. I was feeling weak, dizzy, and coughing uncontrollably. Finally on Saturday, our TA who speaks Chinese took me to the doctor. Many of us have been coughing, attributing it to the polluted air, but mine was far worse than anyone else. It felt too exhausting to walk so I decided enough was enough. After confusing my chart with a 63 year old man and telling me to get an x-ray of my lungs (because they sounded horrendous through the stethoscope) then that the only x-ray machine in the hospital was broken, I got the right medicines and have been taking them for a day and a half and am feeling much better. Not to worry - no swine or avian flu. I was also glad that despite everyone else having bowel trouble, not I. Only a weak immune system. I got some interesting Chinese herbal cough syrup, some western medicine pills, and some wax balls which I pop open to find a glob of chewy herbal concoction; very fun. Unfortunately the urban design professor from my department had to go home because of a family matter; there's a possibility he will come back and I really hope he will because we are missing a lot by not having his input. The other from the architecture dept. is great but in the usual m.o. of architecture professors expects us to stay up all night consistently. Not healthy, not fun, asking for trouble, will have to work around this.