ABSTRACT by Emma Ma
The City of Shenzhen was created as a part of the Chinese economic reform in 1978. The existing undulating topography was bulldozed and flattened, as agrarian fields were transformed into a world-class megalopolis. The state-backed initiative saw the accelerated growth of the city from a population of 300,000 to more than a million in one decade.
The new city was split in two by the fenced and guarded Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Administrative Line. The southern portion of the city was designated a Special Economic Zone (SEZ), a controlled state experiment with global capitalism, while the northern section remained a part of hinterland China. The macro apparatus of division created a geographical and psychological chasm in the administrative and ontological existence of Shenzhen. The locals dubbed the dividing border “the Second Line”.
While the Second Line was an extraordinarily successful catalyst in rejuvenating the state economy, such rapid development rooted in sheer efficiency exacerbated the micro segmentation of social classes and fragmentation of urban growth. The city grew into a collage of introverted enclaves that exist in adjacent isolation, each tenured by a demographic of specific cultural, social, and economic milieu.
The thesis intervention is an architectural response and challenge to existing state policies that govern intra-national migration and the inequitable distribution of state social welfare. Taking on the site and form of the Second Line, the project physically re-constructs the space of the divide, commemorating the boundary’s role in the urban and economic development of Shenzhen at a macro scale. On the ground, the specific architecture acts as a public infrastructure to provide a framework of interface between the segregated territories and demographics of the city. The proposal subverts the ideology of division through inhabitation and creates a collective space of dwelling on the Second Line.
Supervisor:
Adrian Blackwell, University of Waterloo
Committee Members:
John McMinn, University of Waterloo
Lola Sheppard, University of Waterloo
External Reader:
Huang Weiwen, Shenzhen Municipal Planning Bureau
The Defence Examination will take place: Thursday, August 15, 2013 9:00 AM Main Lecture Hall
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