The Importance of Urban Design for Your Community

lcyen0503
Mar 5, 2021
7 min read

Updated: Dec 11, 2021

ID APPLICATION PART 2 | SESSION JAN2021

BACKGROUND

URBAN DESIGN

Urban design is the shaping of a community’s physical form in a way that considers a multiplicity of objectives and interests through an inclusive, public decision-making process. Combining the practices of architecture, planning, and landscape architecture, the urban design addresses the functional and aesthetic qualities of the physical environment at a range of scales, from the individual streetscape, park, or block to the larger community, city, or region.

Urban design addresses how people perceive and use their environment. People care about the look, feel, and livability of their communities.

The Urban Studies Major provides a broad interdisciplinary understanding of how urban dynamics shape both global interdependence and local spaces. It emphasizes how cities are increasingly critical to the organization of economic, social, and cultural activities that shape and transform the human experience.

Thereinto, the synergy between urban planners in public service, community and non-governmental organisations/development agencies, the organised private sector, and professional bodies has been explored as a key contrivance to a successful implementation of the SDGs.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT GOAL

The Sustainable Development Goals are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all. To achieve sustainable development, three sectors need to come together. The economic, socio-political, and environmental sectors are all critically important and interdependent.

According to the UN, the target is to reach the community farthest behind. Commitments should be transformed into effective actions requiring a correct perception of target populations. However, numerical and non-numerical data or information must address all vulnerable groups such as children, elderly folks, persons with disabilities, refugees, indigenous peoples, migrants, and internally displaced persons.

As a result, in this project, I would like to work on the SDG03 good health and wellbeing to bring out the importance of urban design.

RESEARCHES | STATISTIC OF GOOD HEALTH AND WELLBEING

According to the statistic of SDG03, it shows that many people have no basic healthcare or they are still waiting for the treatment they need. However, death will happen every 2 seconds with people dying prematurely from non-communicable diseases.

Among all the targets of SDG03, targets 3.4 and 3.8 prove that people are still working on achieving universal health coverage.

*3.4

By 2030, reduce by one-third premature mortality from non-communicable diseases through prevention and treatment and promote mental health and well-being.

*3.8

Achieve universal health coverage, including financial risk protection, access to quality essential healthcare services and access to safe, effective, quality and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.

RESEARCHES | THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF PANDEMIC

From the research of THE NEGATIVE IMPACT OF PANDEMIC, we can know that Critical care for people with non-communicable diseases is even more precious in the age of COVID-19.

Although infectious diseases are very frightening, we also cannot ignore the seriousness of non-communicable diseases. Before the coronavirus breakout, humans already encountered the problems of shortage of services within and outside health systems to prevent and treat non-communicable diseases for a long time. The probability of dying from any of the four main non-communicable diseases – cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes and chronic respiratory disease – between the ages of 30 and 70 declined from 22 per cent in 2000 to 19 per cent in 2010 and to 18 per cent in 2016.

And we have to know that there are 71% of all deaths worldwide were attributable to non-communicable diseases. Furthermore, human is encountering new trouble which is weakness people or people with pre-existing non-communicable diseases are more vulnerable to becoming severely ill with the coronavirus. And because of the shortage, there are many people who are not receiving the health services and medicines they need.

As a result, the already precious opportunity for treatment has become even more rare.

PROPOSAL SOLUTION

Among the challenges and the solutions of SDG03 and non-communicable disease, the solution that I would like to highlight here is Preventing and Controlling. In my opinion, if people can do something to prevent the illness by themselves, then it might reduces the burden of the medical department.

OBJECTIVE

Therefore, my objective is by focusing on covering our services with health promotion, disease prevention, and slowing disease progression in people.

As taking care of the body from now, in case we will encounter the next COVID-19 in the future.

In this case, Traditional Chinese medical(TCM) is such a good way to alleviate the problem.

RESEARCHES | TRADITIONAL CHINESE MEDICINE

CLIENT

Next, I would like to work together with the Malaysia Chinese Medicine Association (MCMA) on this project. And the visions that I would like to point out are they will provide affordable Chinese medical services to poor patients and Assist the government to jointly manage, restrain, promote and develop the cause of TCM in Malaysia.

CASE STUDY

Moreover, I also did a case study on a health store which is called Tongrentang Zhima Health Store in China. The earliest medicine restaurant was Tongren Hall in Chengdu, which was started by Mr Peng, a retired soldier, and the word "medicine diet" also came into being. And this health store is designed to have a complex functional system of healthy diet + medical center+ health examination + social entertainment.

LOCATION

The location of the site is beside the River of Life in KL, it is a tourist attraction owned and managed by the Kuala Lumpur City Hall (DBKL). Hence, the population of the site is TOURIST, VENDOR, WHITE COLLAR, BLUE COLLAR, and HOMELESS.

TARGET AUDIENCE

According to the population of the site, I have set my target audience as WORKER(surrounding) & TOURIST. Workers are one group of my target audience not only because of the population but also because many of them are busy with their work and an unhealthy but fast diet is always their first choice. Due to the long-term unhealthy living habits, will lead to many diseases. On the other hand, there are many young generations nowadays who aren’t familiar with TCM and many foreign tourists don't know anything about TCM. Therefore, in my opinion, it can increase the awareness of TCM among them as well.

However, since now we are encountering the pandemic issue, it brings the financial burden and mental health as well to those workers. And there are no tourists at this timing due to the pandemic. Therefore, the problems that we might encounter are the low-income group might unable to pay for too high medical treatment fees and difficult to promote to foreign tourists since they are unable to enter Malaysia in this period.

MINDMAP

PROPOSAL

In this project, the message that I would like to deliver is that we can get healthier through prevention and we have to keep it up all the way. Due to it's very important to have a strong and healthy body and we take care of the body not only for now but also for the future.

Hence, my proposal is to design a healthy food restaurant which would provide MEDICINAL DIET + TEACH PEOPLE HOW TO COOK HEALTHY BY THEIR OWN + PLACE WHICH MAKES PEOPLE EASIER TO GET THE MEDICINE THEY NEED + PROMOTE A TRADITIONAL HEALTH CULTURE. Besides, I would also like to change the Chinese medicine industry from a very old-fashioned industry to something that is trendy, modern and accepted by the young generations and promote culture to foreign tourists.

CONCEPT

In this project, my design concept is A BETTER TIME AHEAD. As I mentioned above, taking good care of the body is not only for now but also for our future.

CONCEPT ELEMENT

Next, my concept element is ASIAN GINSENG, its because there is one of the qualities of ginseng which is the longer time you keep then the better quality it has.

CONCEPT MOOD BOARD

In my concept mood board, I would like to deliver that persevering spirit will bring health.

RESEARCHES | GINSENG

And I also did some research on ginseng. The standard to judge whether ginseng is good or bad is that its color is yellow and its grain depth.

CUSTOMER JOURNEY MAP

RESEARCHES | SPACE REQUIRED & EQUIPMENT

RESEARCHES | TRADITIONAL CHINESE BUILDING DESIGN

As this project is related to traditional Chinese culture, therefore I also did some research on traditional Chinese building design. There are some typical elements that have been used in traditional Chinese architecture for a long time.

Use wood as the main building material.
It is usually composed of a number of single buildings, and the appearance is composed of three parts: the platform foundation, the roof body and the roof.
Mainly adopts the middle axisymmetric, square and neat group combination and layout.
A variety of colors.
Glazed ceramic tiles roof.

While I was looking into the further dynasty of China, I found that there is no textual research on the earliest emergence of the traditional Chinese Medicine Museum, but the Tongren Hall, which was founded by Le Xianyang in 1669 (the eighth year of Kangxi of the Qing Dynasty), has been dedicated to imperial medicine since 1723 and has gone through 188 years of eight emperors.

Qing Dynasty architecture

The last feudal dynasty in China.
The architecture followed the tradition of the Ming Dynasty.
The introduction and use of glass and the progress of masonry construction.
It presents the image of a concise body and tedious details.

The design of their house is influenced by the class system and below there are 3 Typical residential buildings of the Qing Dynasty.

Firstly, there is The courtyard house which is called SIHEYUAN and it is the representative of the courtyard building in the north. Its courtyard is spacious and sparse, the houses on all sides are independent, and there are verandas connected with each other, so it is very convenient to live. Siheyuan is a closed house, there is only one street door, closed-door from the world, with strong privacy is very suitable for exclusive living. In the courtyard, the four houses opened in the direction of the courtyard.

The shadow wall is an important decorative wall inside and outside the gate of Beijing siheyuan, and most of it is made of brick. its main function is to block the messy walls and scenery inside and outside the gate and beautify the entrance and exit of the gate. So When people go in and out of the house, the first thing they see head-on is the elegantly stacked and beautifully carved walls and the auspicious words embedded on them.

Next, the residential courtyard in the south is very small, and the surrounding houses are connected together, called "a seal", which is suitable for the climatic conditions of the south. they often use White walls and black tiles, to give people a sense of simplicity and elegance.

Lastly, Hakka Tulou is a unique mythical mountain village residential building in the world. And it is divided into square tulou and round tulou. At first, single houses were built with local raw soil, gravel and wood strips, then connected into large houses, and then multi-storey square or circular earthen buildings were built to resist external oppression and bandits.