Research On Event-driven Urban Space Regeneration

In the era of globalization and information,‘urban event’ has become anunavoidable concept for the development of cities. Being widely produced toencourage the attention of the global community, attract investment and talent,plus to accelerate the development of cities both in function and spatial structure,manufactured events have become a focus in many researches. As there is acommon phenomenon that urban spaces in many cities are losing their culturalidentity and viability in the process of modernization and internationalization,this dissertation discussed how urban event could act as an intervention in urbanspace regeneration, and tried to explore an alternative strategy based onspace-event.According to empirical evidence in Europe, successful events have theability to alter the perception of a site dramatically and transform a landscaperapidly. This dissertation started with an analysis of the ‘European Capital ofCulture’ programme, delving into the reasons why event could act as a drivingforce of urban regeneration and its mechanism based on the practical experienceof48cities. Through three case studies in Essen, this dissertation furtherdiscussed the ways how ‘event-space’ takes advantage of symbolic value of theindustrial landscape, historic features of the rebuilt city centre, and availabilityof the forgotten space to reveal the possibilities of urban space.Based on these analyses, it finally came to the spatial strategy exploration.In essence, event-driven urban space regeneration is a process of spatialrelationship production, focusing on open potential by restructuring therelations between reality, representation and imagination through ‘event-space’.Therefore, the concept of ‘event-space’ can be used as a constructive way ofthinking in urban design, and also provide a chance for form innovation inarchitectural dimension. Different from traditional methods, event-based spatialdesign is a kind of dynamic and four-dimensional spatial practice, which goesbeyond the production of physical spaces and provides a possible way forChinese cities to deal with the decaying urban spaces.