A Study On Space Alienation In The Semi-public Space Of The Hanrunli Historical Residential District

Lifen, defined as a type of residential building, prevails in comprehending thecharacteristics of Wuhan and its life style in modern world. However, many of them havecollapsed in the process of citilization. The remaining ones, through the many years ofserving the residents, cannot satisfy the basic requirments of living for the people. It isthus a necessity to preserve the selected Lifens for the purpose of exhibiting the gloriousimage of Wuhan and inheriting the legacy of her spirit. Preservation per se, however, shallnow be static and indifferent. Therefore, this paper mostly concerns about the spontaneousreconstructing behavior by the residents and balancing relationship between protectingthese historical buildings and preserving the quality of the living for the residents.Space alienation hereby refers to a space reconstructing strategy adopted by theresidents through altering the initial use of some part of the space in order to incept somenew feature into the original setting of the prototype and further to change theunbanlancing status quo relationship governing the space and everyday living, caused bythe historical building structure failing to serve the increasing demand from the residents,into the a new equilibrium.Take the outstanding Lifen building, Hanrunli, as a demonstrating example. Hanrunliresidential district has an extraordinarily various spacial levels, including public space(main-lane and front-lane), semi-public space (back-lane) and private space. The equallyvariousness is contained in the residential units in the district including the semi-publicspace(front-courtyard,central room,stairscase,back-courtyard and rooftop) and privatespace(badroom,kitchen and toilet). The semi-public space in the residential units hasshown the highest frequency and deepest degree of space alienation, which offersenormous evidences for this paper. At the mean time, the variation in the degree ofalienation from the thirty-three sample units with respect to the difference in the unitlayout, the prototypes and the living requirement contributes greatly to this paper.Firstly, this paper has proposed the concept of unbalancing and balancingrelationship between the living demand and space reconstructure. It compares thealternation of space structure from prototype to alienized semi-public space and overviews the phenomenon and causes of the space alienation of semi-public space in the Hanrunlidistrict. Secondly, by analyzing the constraint factor, the decisive factor and other relevantones such as the space structure, the space constrainting methods and inclosing materialsin details, this paper induces the variation mechanism guiding the relationships amongresidents and the space in the process of space alienation. Finally, through the analysis ofthree representative individual cases, this paper concludes the different catagories of spacealienation in the semi-public space in Hanrenli residential district. From the observation ofstatus of space alienation and the information contained in the initial and proceeding statusas well as the justification of the currently existencing status, this paper summarizesseveral characteristics of the space alienation in the semi-public space.The research on the space alienation in the historical residential district is, by its ownnature, an exploration into a more generalized spatial problem. This paper and the methodand results from analyzing the space alienation of the semi-public space in Hanrunliresidential district, by my honest hope, shall be inspiring in answering the questionsconcerning historical districts.