Love in urban design-Icebreaker

Background

Hello guys,my name is Jianan Liu.I come from Zhoushan, Zhejiang, a beautiful island in the East China Sea. Before studying for a master’s degree in urban design at Newcastle University, I studied human geography and urban and rural planning at Taiyuan Normal University. I learned a lot of professional knowledge about geography and urban planning, which has enabled me to think and explore issues from different perspectives when analysing cities. For me, urban design is not as lofty as urban planning. Design is a synthesis of the physical form and cultural attributes of a site, and is a discipline that can truly express planning ideas.

Why am I interested in this major?

I was born on a very unremarkable island and have lived here for 23 years, witnessing first-hand the island’s transformation from being inaccessible to the mainland to being closely connected to it, and from being poor and backward to experiencing rapid economic development. The planning and design of island cities always has many special characteristics. It has a profound cultural heritage, but also has many restrictions on urban development due to political, economic, and social factors. Islands have rich cultural resources and tourism potential that can be developed, but the government’s misguided development direction has resulted in a lack of memorable places in the city, which prevents it from attracting more tourists. Coupled with an aging population and serious population loss, this has severely restricted the development of the island city’s already small economy. Throughout the history of urban planning and design in China, there have been many stumbling blocks, and there are still many problems and challenges to be solved and faced. I hope that in this era of challenges and opportunities, I can join the industry through the study of professional knowledge, and think about the many problems brought about by the rapid development of our cities from the perspective of both users and designers, and consider how to solve and optimise them. I also hope that I can translate the theoretical knowledge of urban planning and design into the practical level, rather than thick planning text guidelines. This learning journey will definitely be full of challenges, and I am very excited about it.

Figure1—My hometown Zhoushan,Zhejiang,China photo by Jianan Liu,2021