New Constructions in the Historical Context from the Perspective of Architectural Programming: Procedure and Practice

Zhang Qu (Tongji University)

In China, with the rapid urban growth，the city is expanding while the inner city is constantly regenerated. In this process, the historical environment of the city faces increasing pressure from both new and renewal constructions. The design of the new project in the historical context includes not merely the simple idea of function or form, but also a careful analysis. Based on programming study and environmental behavior study, the thesis focuses on new constructions in the historical context from the perspective of architectural programming.

The programming phase could be divided into three steps: information processing, programming composing and feedback evaluating. The first step information processing aims to find out problems in site, space and operation, so as to determine the design requirements of the new project. The second step programming composing based on the abstract target derived from above. Combining with environmental psychology, sociology, urban economics and other interdisciplinary knowledge, it brings up the programming conception of the site, entity, space and operation. The last step feedback evaluating takes the result of self-evaluation and post occupancy evaluation research, in order to complete the evaluating factors of projects in historical contexts and setup a comprehensive evaluating system.

In the last part of the thesis, there is a brief introduction of a programming practice, the reconstruction of Hancheng Christian Church, China, which is based the programming principles above.