Method Study On The Compact Space Planning Of Small Town In Chaoshan Area Under The Influence Of "Source Culture"

A great number of small towns in China with unique regional cultures and a great development potential have been stuck in the dilemma that their fast economic and social development is restrained by limited space. Space intensification thus becomes an inevitable choice for small towns to deal with the environmental and resource pressures they are facing. However, the existing"top-down"space intensification strategies at the technical level usually fail to have the anticipated effects in practice. The reason for that lies in the lack of one of the most fundamental driving forces for the formation of space in the planning process of small towns, that is, the concern of people's cultural psychological characteristics and the utilization of the"source culture"(namely the deep kernel of regional cultural psychology).This paper tries to"search for the cultural psychological roots"regarding space planning and design in small towns, explore the influence and propulsion of regional cultural psychology to the space intensification in small towns, and give play to the role of regional cultural psychology in planning and strategies preparation. The origin of the study comes from two aspects: one is represented by Chaoshan area. The planning of small towns in China is facing the real problem that environmental and resource conditions are constraining its good and fast development, thus new methods are needed to alleviate the situation and space intensification serves as the must and badly-needed choice; the other is that significant changes have been made to the existing research context of urban planning. In the current information age, the advocacy of multiple cultures and the promotion of humanistic thoughts have contributed to the shift of planning theories to the academic paradigm of postmodernism. It becomes a natural thing to explore and inspect the situation by borrowing a variety of theoretic sources so as to get a reasonable explanation. The extensive cross-integration of space disciplines such as architectural design and urban planning with academic disciplines such as sociology, psychology, political science and cultural studies have become an unavoidable logical starting point and a research strategy to plunge into the thick of life and study real planning problems. Based on the characteristics of local culture, the study closely connects the status quo and development demands of the planning of small towns in Chaoshan area, and from the angles of a variety of disciplines such as urban planning, cultural ecology and social psychology, analyzes and discusses the problem of space intensification in the process of planning small towns in Chaoshan area, and tries to explore the appropriate planning strategies.Main contents of this paper are as follows:Part I (Chapter II) extracts the"source"culture. In this part, the definitions of culture and cultural psychology, as well as the structural relationship between the two are combed first to make clear that culture is the driving force for the material creation by the human beings. Such creation activities include urban and rural planning. The material creation of the human beings is not only a tool to change the environment, but also a presentation of the human mind-set full of good wishes and determined by the human-unique cultural and psychological structure. The created material civilization facilitates the extensive dissemination of ideology and conception and brings Gospel to the mankind. The concept of"source"culture is then established on the basis of it."Source"culture refers to the deep kernel of the cultural psychology with unique regional characteristics. Coming from the"primitive accumulation", the"source"culture is a naturally endowed concept of the human beings and the"collective unconsciousness"of the public. After that, this paper makes an in-depth analysis of the characteristics of the natural geological environment and the social life in which Chaoshan culture has been nourished, and carries out a research over the textual criticism by selecting the traditional folk houses in Chaoshan area before extracting the"source"culture - the framework of the psychological structure composed of four aspects and expressed in words. The results show that the achievements got by textual criticism are recognized by the public. The"source"culture of Chaoshan area is finally extracted.Part II (Chapter III) explores the mechanism of the effects of"source"culture on the space intensification of small towns. Firstly, the problem and dangers of extensive space utilization popular in the planning of small towns today, and the unavoidable choice of adopting space intensification are analyzed and pointed out; secondly, the current several erroneous notions that lead to the"extensive space utilization"strategy are analyzed; the fact that failing to trust and carry forward the"source"culture, relying mainly on the subjective ideas of the designer, or blindly following the so-called rational design is the deep-seated internal cause resulting in the problem of space utilization by small towns; finally, Longhu Village and Xiashan Township are taken as the examples to retrace the internal relationship of the space development of small towns in Chaoshan area with its"source"culture and to summarize the influence and mechanism of effects of the"source"culture on space intensification of small towns.Part III (Chapters IV, V and VI) discusses the three planning strategies for utilizing the"source"culture to promote the space utilization of small towns. The three strategies are"two-way adaptive planning model", the"source"culture-based space utilization planning strategy and its cultural psychological adaptation degrees'evaluation index system, as well as the substantial resident participation mechanism. Major innovations of this study lie in:(1) Ideas. It introduces the regional cultural psychology into the design and research of urban and rural planning and adopts the studying idea of intercrossing a number of disciplines, thus breaking through the limitations of the existing planning methods of small towns in China.(2) The research. It studies the characteristics of the unique regional cultural psychology elements in Chaoshan area and their influence in spatial forms, and combines them with space planning to finally find the"two-way adaptive planning model"integrating the advantages of the"top-down"and"bottom-up"planning methods.(3) Application Prospect. The study has not only explored new methods to solve the environmental and resource difficulties faced by Chaoshan area in its practice of planning small towns, but also will play a demonstrative role in planning small towns in the next phase in China.