Abstract
In recent years, there is a surge in Chinese cities of transforming traditional high-tech park to Innovation District as knowledge-based economy performing a key role in city competitiveness. While mainly focuses on innovation industries, Innovation District also requires specific place quality that accommodates innovation corporation as well as talents, therefore a comprehensive understanding of the place-making process is needed. However, while existing literature has extensively studied the transformation process from the perspective of industries change and renewal mechanisms, there is a prominent lack of knowledge in the place-making process of Innovation District, and current practices, mostly from a subjective viewpoint, call for a more scientific and rational approach. Therefore, this article proposes a quantitative assessment of Innovation District in China, in order to obtain a comprehensive understanding of its place-making features, and at the same time, answering the following research questions: In the process of transforming from High-tech Park, how has the morphology and vitality of Innovation District changed? And in what way the morphology of Innovation District, with which planning and design process mainly intervenes, correlates and interacts with its vitality? Finally, what are the strategies for planning intervention in the place-making of Innovation District to accommodate to its innovative nature? With an empirical approach, we take four Chinese Innovation Districts, with Zhongguancun in Beijing, Zhangjiang in Shanghai, and other two respectively in Shenzhen and Suzhou, who all share the status of National High-Tech Industrial Development Zone (NHTIDZ), while distinct in the transformation process. For example, Zhongguancun is known for corporations headquarters, therefore more “complete” as far as evolutionary forms concerned, while NHTIDZ in Suzhou remains dominant with manufacturing. Comparison of Innovation District in different evolutionary forms can effectively bridge the cognitive gap in the temporal dimension. Through a variety of high-frequency and emerging data, this article is able to explore the spatial morphology and functional vitality elements and their associations in the place-making process of Innovation District in different evolutionary states. Before conducting a full-on comparison, we use social media data to evaluate the performance of Innovation District, and finds that evolutionary process indeed improve place quality. At the same time, we are able to identify four key indicators for following assessment: density, accessibility, functionality and activity. Therefore, through the above-mentioned indicators, we find that evolution forms significantly differentiate Innovation District, as places viewed as more “complete” displays more homogeneity in accessibility as well as activity, and increasing cases of bottom-up mixed-use development are observed with focus on amenities and services. Furthermore, we notice a boost in synergy between morphology and functional vitality, as area with high accessibility are often identified as area with higher density and activities in Innovation District with a more complete evolutionary forms. These findings indicate a similarity of Innovation District and other urban area. Even though there is noticeable difference in functionality, the place-making, improvement and integration with urban built environment work in similar fashion. Finally, this articles argues a more flexible approach is needed in the place-making process of Innovation District. In the evolutionary process and accompanied by industries changes, significant difference is observed in morphology and functional vitality, which traditional planning and design process is unable to adapt.
