Living background

The background of human settlement environment includes natural environment, agriculture and forestry environment and living environment, which is characterized by human gathering and living activities, while its external performance is concentrated in buildings, cities and landscapes familiar to architectural planners. The background includes resources, environment, ecology and other elements that maintain the basic survival of human beings, which can be called the background of living in a compact community; As the main body of human settlements, red is not only directly related to conventional buildings, cities and landscapes, but also depends on basic survival factors. Among the buildings, cities and landscapes, the buildings of buildings, cities and landscapes, that is, the yellow ones, are the closest to the living environment, which can be called settlement buildings. The three complement each other and form the overall framework of human settlements.

From traditional architecture to human settlements

Human activities about living space include living and gathering. Living corresponds to buildings, while gathering is related to environmental places.

Everyone can understand "living" and "gathering". We can vividly understand it as the gathering of activities that people go out of houses and roofed buildings in an open space. After thousands of years of construction, human beings have not only solved the basic needs of building houses and sheltering from the wind and rain, but also can do everything from structural materials to mass forms. "Living" is no longer a problem for human beings. However, despite the same experience of thousands of years, human beings have just begun to intervene in "gathering". Many laws need to be discovered and many problems need to be solved. Among them, one is the well-known living environment problem, that is, the protection and expansion of the open space environment much larger than the building, and the other is the "people-oriented" problem, including how to solve the human space activities with large population, different needs and increasing requirements. These problems, which are difficult to solve at the moment, are puzzling mankind. At the same time, the background of human settlement environment is facing unprecedented deterioration and severe future. Global warming has caused icebergs to melt, and now the sea level is rising every year. According to the current statistics, if human beings continue to operate regardless of the ecological environment, by 2500, the whole sea level will rise by 8 meters, which means that many coastal cities will be submerged, at least half of human living areas will be destroyed, and the living space on land, which is relatively reduced due to the rapid population growth, will be drastically reduced.

Such a sinister prospect poses a great challenge to how to solve the living environment problem in the construction industry. At present, the accelerated expansion of the construction scale has led to the accelerated occupation of land, the massive consumption of resources and the extreme destruction of the environment. Compared with the living space activities of the ancients, modern people's requirements for architecture and its environment are more and more rich and critical.

From the traditional view of architecture, people pay attention to the architectural entity itself. Due to the small scale of ancient social construction, the consumption of environment and resources is not great. At that time, the population was small and the requirements for architecture and environment were not high. Modern architecture is associated with environmental problems and how to meet the needs of many people. Therefore, the inevitable trend in the field of architecture now is to expand the concept and thinking scope of traditional architecture, not only to build roads and bridges, plant flowers and trees, and build several houses, but also to consider environmental protection and the consumption of space, materials and resources by buildings. In addition, from environmental physiological behavior to human spiritual needs, human beings are always developing, and people's requirements are always getting higher and higher. We should carefully study and consider people's requirements for environmental behavior. Of course, the construction itself also needs innovation and development.

In this way, architecture, environment and behavior constitute the architectural view of today's architectural circles, which is the basic concept of human settlements. These three aspects are like the three primary colors of architecture. Blue is a big background problem-environment and resources, red is a human behavior problem-how to meet people's needs, and yellow is a traditional planning and design problem in the construction industry.

As the background of human settlements, blue includes natural environment, agriculture and forestry environment and living environment. Its internal performance is the gathering and living activities of human beings, while its external performance focuses on buildings, cities and landscapes familiar to architectural planners. The background includes resources, environment, ecology and other elements that maintain the basic survival of human beings, which can be called the background of living in a compact community; As the main body of human settlements, red is not only directly related to conventional buildings, cities and landscapes, but also depends on basic survival factors. Among the buildings, cities and landscapes, the buildings of buildings, cities and landscapes, that is, the yellow ones, are the closest to the living environment, which can be called settlement buildings. The three complement each other and form the overall framework of human settlements.

In this basic concept, the core of living background is the concept of resources and environmental protection: human living environment should be understood as a kind of resources, such as space resources, time resources, natural resources and human resources; The core of human settlement activities is the relationship between people and society and the value orientation of human existence, that is, introducing value judgment: identifying and judging the advantages and disadvantages of human settlement environment and its development and construction orientation; The core of housing construction is standard quantification: in the face of a series of construction and development problems such as land use and building density, reasonable and feasible quantitative refinement standards are determined to control the construction effect.

The general trend of the evolution of human living environment

The evolution of human living environment has such a time series and its corresponding forms: settlements in prehistoric times, villages in agricultural civilization era, market towns and cities, villages in industrial civilization era, market towns, urban-rural junction, villages in post-industrial civilization era, market towns, urban-rural junction, and prospects of post-industrial civilization era. The living environment of these different times constitutes the so-called topological form of human living environment, which has 18 elements, including resource consumption, living place and living environment from the living background; From the perspective of settlement activities, it includes lifestyle, traffic connection, time scale, time distribution, space scale, space distribution, space-time concept, ideal pursuit and value orientation; From the perspective of settlement construction, it includes construction scale, settlement unit, settlement layout, settlement density, building materials and construction methods.

Taking these topological elements as indicators, we have made a survey and quantitative statistics on Xi 'an banpo village, Yongding Tulou in Fujian, Zhouzhuang in Jiangsu, Kahongcheng in Egypt, Xialouzhai Village in Yiwu, Tangzhi Town in Changshu, Le Kang Community in Shanghai, Huangcuo Farmer Village in Xiamen, Singapore Prototype New Town and Jinhua Community in Pudong, Shanghai, from which we can see the general trend of the development and evolution of human settlements-in terms of settlement background and resource consumption: with the development of productivity. The ability of human beings to conquer nature and use natural resources has been continuously improved, from a large number of predatory use of a few primary resources (land, water, animals and plants) to the organized and selective use of diverse natural resources, and then to the use of secondary natural resources (farmland, reservoir water, cultured animals and plants). The use of resources has also increased more processing and substitution, changing the way of direct acquisition in the past. Settlement location: With the enhancement of resource utilization ability, human beings gradually break away from the constraints of natural conditions when choosing settlements, extending from seashore, plains, mountains and valleys to all areas where human beings can live, and even opening mountains, filling the sea, going to heaven and entering the ground, expanding the areas where human beings can live in space. Compared with the past, human beings have greater freedom in the choice of settlement. Human settlement environment: From prehistoric civilization to industrial civilization, with the improvement of productivity, the growth of population and the relative lag of environmental awareness, the human settlement environment has generally deteriorated. In the post-industrial civilization period, environmental awareness has increased, ecological technology has developed, and the momentum of environmental deterioration has shown a downward trend. However, unless special treatment is taken, the environment will still deteriorate. Horizontally, rural areas are better than cities and towns are better than cities.

With the development of productive forces, people's life has gradually changed from "working at sunrise and resting at sunset" to a diversified life combining work, leisure, entertainment, tourism and vacation. Traffic connection: The means of transportation of human beings have experienced the dynamic transformation process of manpower-animal power-machinery-electricity, becoming more and more automatic and diversified, and the traffic connection has changed from a simple plane type to a three-dimensional type, which has provided convenience for human communication and expanded the scope of human activities. Time scale: from one minute of day and night to twelve o'clock a day, and then to twenty-four hours a day, the change of timing mode shows that the efficiency of human unit time is improved and the time scale is gradually increased. It seems not impossible to divide a day into twenty-five hours. Time allocation: the basic survival time is reduced, and the cultural and entertainment time is increased. Spatial scale: the gradual increase of human spatial scale can be obtained from the gradual increase of unit room scale. Space allocation: The general trend is that the proportion of private space decreases and the proportion of public space increases. It can be seen that human beings are moving towards socialization step by step. Space-time view: From the group of several people to the whole universe, from not knowing the causes of birth, illness and death to thousands of years, human beings' space-time view has been expanding, and they are more and more aware of their position in the whole space-time. Ideal pursuit: the scope of concern is getting bigger and bigger, gradually expanding from family and individual to national prosperity, that is, Laozi's consciousness of "reaching for oneself and others". Value orientation: gradually shift from maintaining individual survival to group emotional connection.

In terms of settlement construction, the scale of construction: due to the growth of population and the improvement of human ability to transform nature, the scale of construction continues to expand, but it stops growing after reaching a certain level, which is related to people's cognitive ability and activity ability. Therefore, a certain construction scale is suitable for the social productive forces at that time, and we can't blindly pursue perfection. Residential unit: experienced the development process of clan-consanguineous family-clan-neighborhood, and gradually changed from consanguineous relationship to geographical relationship. At present, most countries are in the stage of giving priority to the nuclear family, but for the psychological needs of security and belonging, human beings seek harmonious and friendly neighborhood units. Residential layout: There is an interesting cycle: centralization (pre-civilization)-decentralization (farming civilization)-centralization (industrial civilization)-decentralization (post-industrial civilization). Settlement density: modern times is higher than ancient times, and cities are higher than rural areas. However, the per capita land area of cities in China has been around 100 square meter since ancient times, less than 100 square meter in big cities and more than 100 square meter in small and medium-sized cities. With the process of urbanization, the urban per capita land area is generally on the rise. Building materials: materials used by human beings to build their own residential quarters, from natural materials such as mud, thatch and wood to artificial materials such as artificial bricks and tiles, and then to high-tech materials such as glass curtain walls, enamel boards and aluminum alloy steel plates. The performance of materials is getting better and better, and it is diversified. Construction mode: from manual carrying mode to systematic mechanized construction mode. Accelerate the construction speed and shorten the construction period.

● Technologies with far-reaching significance to the construction industry.

The utilization of natural resources can be divided into high technology and low technology. It may not be strange to fashionable high-tech people, such as 3000-meter tall buildings and space city. So what is the so-called low technology? Low-tech residential environment is the utilization of natural wind direction and sunlight mentioned above, which is a conventional technology. If the house faces south, there is water in front. Many years later, the river bed moved and the land in front increased. It is often called "Feng Shui" to follow the laws of natural space and make use of natural resources. Geomantic omen is essentially the most typical low-tech application in architecture. Ancient craftsmen often used geomantic omen to pursue energy-saving of buildings, ventilation of towns and unobstructed environment, while modern architectural planners almost forgot all about these low technologies. It is of great significance to advocate the application of low technology for the construction of living environment in 2 1 century. Ecological means often correspond to low technology, while high technology is generally artificial and unnatural.

Of course, facing the future, developing and applying low technology does not mean going back to ancient times completely. There is a modern topic, the combination and utilization of low technology and high and low technology. For example, some people are doing experiments now, using the principle of chimney ventilation to form airflow, and then using gas turbines to drive generators to generate electricity; In desert areas, several square kilometers are covered with a piece of glass, and sunlight shines on the glass, heating the air below. There is a chimney in the middle, and the air inside can be heated to 80℃~90℃, forming a fast airflow enough to generate electricity. According to the preliminary test results, as long as five such power stations are built in the world, it will be enough for people to use, such as one in Europe, with a glass coverage area of 800 square kilometers and one in China, with a glass coverage area of 6,500 square kilometers. Is this high-tech or low-tech? Its basic energy comes from sunlight, but it is different from high-tech solar panels. It uses the most traditional chimney, the principle should be low-tech, but the generator machinery inside is still high-tech. The combination of high technology and low technology will surely become the direction of the architectural field in the 2 1 century.

Take the environment and greening as a cultural resource.

In the well-known concept of environmental protection, there is a cultural environmental protection that is often ignored. In fact, culture is also a kind of resource, which is directly related to human settlement activities. Man is not a machine, and architecture is not a "living machine"! Facing the high-tech and emotional 2 1 century, the protection of cultural environment will be a prominent issue, especially for China.

Foreign tourists will always sigh when they come to Shanghai and Puxi. Buildings with history and culture were demolished, and the environment with history and culture changed. In Pudong Central Park under construction, traditional villages are being demolished. Why not keep some villages in the city? Parks are not only trees and flowers, but also culture. Parks should be a treasure house of culture and a base of leisure history. I have taken hundreds of years of western culture, but I have lost my own cultural accumulation for thousands of years.

From the perspective of greening, why are there no big trees now? There is a guiding question, one of the reasons is to learn from Dalian. In fact, learning from others should also be combined with yourself. I think northern cities need sunshine more, while southern cities need shadows more. In the south, people's outdoor activities are mostly in hot summer and autumn, and they need shadows to keep out the scorching sun. In the north, in the corresponding season, more sunshine is warm. In addition to climate and physiological requirements, environmental greening lies in culture. Europe is a shepherd culture, which needs grass and likes it. We are different in Jiangnan, China, and definitely not a shepherd culture. If we also give priority to grass, we will not have our own culture. Take the Bund in Shanghai as an example. On the surface, it is a greening problem, but in essence it is a historical, cultural and environmental protection problem. Before the Bund was rebuilt, the trees were lush, and all kinds of coastal buildings were beautiful against the background of rivers and trees. After the renovation, there is a lonely building on one side and a bare revetment on the other. Needless to say, summer and autumn. What is more problematic is that it has lost nearly a hundred years of cultural accumulation, and Chinese and foreign counterparts all sigh for it. People can't help asking, why don't the new Bund keep the original big trees? Why did the place where big trees were planted become parking garages and small shops? Is there only a problem of design and transformation here? Are our ideas biased?

People-oriented 2 1 century

Architecture advocates people-oriented. This "person" is not an abstract person, nor is it a minority. "People" refers to specific people, men and women, old and young, people of different ages, occupations, races, religions, beliefs and cultures. This requires the diversity of architecture and environment. But our buildings have been the same for decades, and the most typical one is townhouses, which are not designed according to users' preferences. Today's real estate developers must consider the diversity of architectural forms to meet the needs of different people for commercial interests.

For example, the design of a square should not be just a division of a large space or the connection of several axes. Although it is difficult for a large square to meet everyone's special needs, planners can design multiple spaces according to different people and different cultural levels, so as to make them as rich as possible and activities as complex as possible. This is particularly realistic for China. In foreign countries, the internal and external space are treated equally, and even the external space is more abundant. From a natural point of view, there are sunshine, breeze, drizzle, green mountains and green waters, flowers, insects, fish, birds and animals in the external space, which are varied, while there are only a few potted flowers, a few fish or small pets in the room, and the natural content is extremely limited, so we are relatively lacking.

In fact, living is only the low-level demand of human beings, and the highest demand of human beings is still the "Garden of Eden". Human nature is not to live alone, but to live in groups. In the past, people worked together and lived separately; 2 1 century, people's workplaces will also be separated, and the distance between people will be made up by "gathering", which puts high demands on "external space". The more highly industrialized society is, the more human beings need emotional communication. Therefore, we should emphasize the development of residential places. At present, China pays more attention to the interior decoration of the family and ignores the external environment. Shanghai's 1998 civilized community construction or cohesion project is changing this concept, which shows the importance of living in the community. The settlement activities of modern civilized society also involve issues such as values and world outlook. A good living environment can standardize people's behavior, edify people's morality, inspire people's inspiration, and help improve people's literacy.

In a word, it is the ultimate goal of our research and practice of human settlements today to examine all kinds of problems faced by contemporary human settlements from a new angle, seek effective means and establish a brand-new construction concept, so as to create a good human settlements.

Future living space and resource utilization

How will human beings use their living space in the future? Looking back at history, the ancient population was sparse, and the settlements were basically point-like layout; In the era of agricultural civilization, the population increased, the number of villages increased, the utilization and development of residential space basically showed a horizontal layout, and there were no high-rise buildings (pagodas at that time were also considered high-rise, but they were not inhabited, just as landscape symbols); In the era of industrial civilization, the population has increased sharply, and the residential space has developed vertically with the metropolis as the symbol. Then, what will be the post-industrial civilization era we are experiencing and facing?

Whether it is a post-industrial civilization building or a city, there must be greater changes: it must develop into a space that combines horizontal and vertical. The vertical direction refers to the development height in the air and the development depth underground. In terms of height, architects in Tokyo are building 1000 meters tall buildings, and Britain, Germany and other countries are jointly testing 3000 meters tall buildings. These are not high for "high". For what? In order to save land resources. The 3000-meter high-rise project can actually form an air city in the end. It uses aerodynamic principles, just like the wings of an airplane. Using wind to generate negative pressure to reduce high-rise load. This is not a fantasy. The horizontal direction means seeking settlement space from the ocean. In addition to vertical and horizontal, the future living environment will also develop into space. For example, NASA plans to realize a space city of 10,000 people in 2030.

Besides the living space, the living environment is also related to other resources. The construction of ancient living environment was almost entirely based on the utilization of natural resources. In the farming era, natural resources were dominant, supplemented by human factors. What are natural resources? For the living environment, sunshine, wind, topography and natural rivers and lakes are all natural resources. In contrast, artificial resources are equivalent to natural secondary or tertiary resources, such as power generation, air conditioning, refrigeration and heating. There are many ways to use natural resources in the living environment. For example, natural streams were introduced into buildings and their surroundings to reduce the temperature, and finally evolved into conventional waterways in gardens, which was adopted by the Mughal dynasty in India 400 years ago. In the era of industrial civilization, this practice was reversed, leading to a series of problems such as environmental damage. What about the future? Through the efforts of all walks of life, we should still advocate making full use of natural resources.