Artifice as nature : post-industrial Pearl River Delta in transition : the case of the Guangzhou steel-mill

Abstract

Guangzhou is deindustrializing. The prototypical site of an ongoing list of planned special economic zones (SEZ) and economic technical development zone (ETDZ) in China. The Pearl River Delta+IBk-s manufacturing and industrial sites are being emptied at an accelerating rate, such processes are in rapid rate of transition between disuse and reuse. Issues of de-industrialization and urban regeneration are happening simultaneously in the same city, with issues that inhibit redevelopment. Anthropogenic-influenced soils, the focus of this thesis, or brownfield are not fully engaged in its remediation as its effects are ill-defined and will be explored in how can designers mediate between programmatic and nature of design in existing renewal practices. In this thesis, through the symbolic mono-functional site of industrial output of the Guangzhou Steel mill the use of landscape as infrastructure and current construction practices to facilitate this transition of the Pearl River Delta. In the past, a site can be viewed as amalgamation of ongoing transitional processes, as a natural artifice, designing with an open-ended system. The conflicting roles of the natural and the artifice will explored in regards to soil.