Yichang Sun

Research

Subject

Constructing a Third Domain in Studies of Urban Settlement: The Socio-spatial Transformation of Inner-City Nanjing c.1920-2020s

First and second supervisors

Abstract

This research stems from the proposition that there exists a third domain between the public and private realm, which plays a crucial role in linking the urban form and everyday life of city dwellers, however, lacks in-depth socio-spatial research, and thus, understanding of its significance. Focusing on the formation and evolution of the inner-city settlement of Nanjing, China c.1920–2020s, it aims to analyse the intricate interplay between spatial transformation over time and shifting patterns of private-to-public in social, economic and everyday life. With a narrower focus, the topic is specifically addressed through the study of Taiping South Road area, an ordinary yet extraordinary urban settlement, with diverse socio-economic activities and one newly-thriving commercial street since the early twentieth century crossing through.

This project considers how the spatial form of places between home and the public realm shapes and interacts with their social and economic characteristics. These include non-domestic everyday places (tea/coffee houses, restaurants, bath houses, guilds and community centres), the routes and spaces coming home (alleyways, courtyards, decks and so on) and housing themselves. In light of commoning as a dynamic process, this endeavour frames these spaces collectively as a third domain within urban settlements. It is closely aligned with the cultural tradition of the Chinese urban context, which considers such spaces as having a specific character.

Building upon existing scholarship on the relationship between spatial form and society, it proposes an integrated, interdisciplinary analysis of the street configuration, plot morphology and housing spatial form (micromorphology). Through extensive historical-archival research of Nanjing across time and the socio-spatial analysis of common spaces at three spatial levels – city, neighbourhood, and housing – "as one thing", the changing urban form and everyday practice can be traced back and articulated, alongside a rethinking of the role of "common space" in the urban settlement.

Biography

Yichang is a PhD candidate in the Space Syntax Laboratory at The Bartlett School of Architecture, UCL. Grounded on space syntax as an interdisciplinary approach, her continuous research interests straddle urban morphology, urban history, housing studies, spatial cultures, and community co-production. Prior to her PhD journey, Yichang studied architecture and urban design at North China University of Technology (Beijing, 2013-18), Politecnico di Milano (Milan, 2015-16) and Southeast University (Nanjing, 2018-21). The cities and people she encountered along this road gradually shape her particular interest in the fields of urban form and society.

Yichang is also an urban researcher and architect, specialising in Nanjing. Through research and design practice focused on urban morphology and micro-regeneration, her work collaborated with diverse actors in Xiaoxihu Block, Nanjing has been recognised at multiple levels. Currently, she also works as a research assistant and postgraduate teaching assistant at The Bartlett School of Architecture and Development Planning Unit, UCL.

Publications

Sun, Y. and Vaughan, L. (2023). ‘Mapping Guilds of an ‘Earth-bounded’ Society: an enquiry into the socio-spatial history of Late Imperial and Early Republican Nanjing (1910-1930s)’, Urban History Group Conference 2023: Recovery and the City. University of Warwick, 30-31 March.

Bao, L. and Sun, Y. (2022). ‘Rendi Gonggou de Xiaoxihu Chuantong Jiequ Juzhu Jianzhu Duoyangxing Gengxin (Diversified Regeneration of Residential Buildings at the Traditional Xiaoxihu Block within the Context of Man-Geographical Co-Constitution)’, Architectural Journal, No. 638, 2022(01), pp.22-27.

Sun, Y. and Bao, L. (2021) ‘Transitional urban morphology and housing typology in a traditional settlement of 20th century, Nanjing’. In: International Seminar on Urban Form (ISUF) 2020 Conference Proceedings. Utah: University of Utah Publishing. doi: https://doi.org/10.26051/0D-F6J8-8FYF