Description
"This thesis presents a research-for-design enquiry conducted in support ofa concurrent studio design project for a library building in northern China.
Cities throughout China, including the country’s cold northern region, are
expanding. However, current urban planning and architectural design for
northern China tend to reproduce approaches established in central Chinese
cities and therefore often lack consideration of extreme cold environmental
conditions. Offering such consideration, this thesis investigates the possibilities
of transition spaces in urban and architectural design for cold climate
areas, with particular attention towards public space and library buildings.
Based on the strategies of transition and buffer space design, this thesis discusses
the strategy of building transition space between urban context and
public buildings, and the applicability of this strategy in cold areas to better
integrate human comfort and spatial experience. The thesis concludes that
it is essential in designing experientially-rich public spaces for cold areas to
integrate multi-level climate buffers with the appropriate uses of solids and
voids in transitional spaces. Furthermore, the design of buffer and transition
spaces must take advantage of existing urban and natural environments,
including vegetation, buildings, the direction of transition spaces and local
winter wind directions (considering human walking experience), as well as
appropriate choices between transparent and thermally insulating materials
in accordance with architectural functions."
| Period | Jul 2019 |
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