A Critique of Chinese Education

The biggest problem of the state-controlled children’s education in the People’s Republic of China is that the system focuses more on the method of education rather than learning of children themselves. Thus the children lack of internal motivation to learn. Moreover, the typical education in China tend to isolate the students from the neighborhood, lacking a chance for students to really interact and experiement hands on with new knwoledge. However, this problem aspect can be overcame by learning from the western pedagogical strategies, such as the Montessori Education. For this educational approach, the primary goal is to stimulate children’s internal motivation to learn. Children have more freedom to make decisions. What are they going to learn? Where? When? and How? A school building designed to spatialize these pedagogical strategies could rely on architectural tactics which produce the following effects. The school itself becomes a part of the urban infrastructure to connect the school community with the neighborhood, which allows children to have more interaction with its surroundings and the society. Also, within the school, minor learning space is added to create a framework within which children can use to develop their own meaning of learning. At the same time, informal learning spaces are created to extend and enhance children’s learning experiences outside the classroom boxes. In this way, I contend that the school as a learning institution and the architecture that gives it spatial form and urban presence both act as a critique of current practice

Adapting to Expanding and Contracting Cities, Book of Abstracts, 6th Fabos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning, March 28-30, 2019, Amherst, MA.

The Fábos Conference on Landscape and Greenway Planning is held every three years to bring together experts who are influencing landscape planning, policy making and greenway planning from the local to international level. It is intended to highlight recent trends and expand the literature about landscape and greenway planning. The aim is to explore how landscape architects and planners from different countries have approached greenway planning and to understand how greenways have been tailored to each county’s unique geographical, cultural, and political circumstances. The theme for the 2019 conference, Urban Greenway Planning: Adapting to Expanding and Contracting Cities, explores the social and ecological potential of linear green spaces in urban areas that are experiencing decline or those that are booming. We look to understand the variety of ways in which urban greenways are conceived, designed, built, used, and maintained in cities across the globe in response to economic and demographic trends

Does urban rail increase land value in emerging cities? Value uplift from Bangalore Metro

© 2018 Elsevier Ltd This paper seeks to understand how urban rail can influence land value uplift, especially in emerging cities which are largely unstudied. It examines the Bangalore Metro and shows that the uplift from the metro rail was substantial in the ‘catchment area’ and ‘across the city’. The analysis was based on the panel data hedonic price model for around 160,000 apartments over the period 2012–16 and a cross-sectional data hedonic price model for 314,000 apartments in 2016. The panel data resulted in a stronger model and show significant land value increases, even beyond the traditional 500 m catchment. A ‘before’ and ‘after’ from the commencement of the metro rail operations shows a price uplift of 4.5% across the whole city and indicates a major agglomeration economic event resulting in substantial willingness to pay of USD 306 million from the metro rail accessibility. Emerging cities can expect metro rail to substantially improve their economies and other co-benefits as long as finance can be obtained by capturing this value

Towards Socially Integrative Cities

This book is based on the results of the TRANSURBAN-EU-CHINA project. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 770141. The material presented in this book reflects only the authors' views. It does not reflect the official opinion of the European Commission. The TRANS-URBAN-EU-CHINA project or the European Commission are not liable for the contents of the chapters or any use that may be made of the information contained therein. About The book Towards Socially Integrative Cities deals with the transition towards urban sustainability through socially integrative cities in Europe and China. It shares the impactful original research results of an EU-funded R&I project involving eight European and six Chinese partners (TRANS-URBAN-EU-CHINA; see www.transurbaneuchina.eu). Three each of the six editors come from European and Chinese universities and research institutions. The first articles (No. 1–4) provide an overview and insights into the conceptual basis of the book. The socially integrative city is framed by discussions in academia and practice, and it is defined in a comprehensive way as an element of urban sustainability. Sustainability transitions in China are linked to international discussions and the challenges are articulated. Moreover, the discussions touch on the strengths and weaknesses related to managing urban growth and the rapid expansion of cities. Land development tools are discussed with regard to the opportunities they offer for creating socially integrative cities. A second set of articles (No. 5–9) focus on socially integrative urban regeneration of cities. After an overview of policies and strategies in Europe and China, detailed aspects are discussed, such as community building through public engagement, challenges of place-making, and the role of education and life-long learning. Finally, a manuscript on heritage preservation and its impact on social integration in urban regeneration concludes this section. A third set of articles (No. 10–13) look into issues of the transformation of cities and sustainability transitions. Transformation is understood as a complex set of interactions. The development of tools, such as community platforms for information and dialogue transfer, are discussed as an instrument to facilitate transition processes. The transformative capacity of cities in Europe and China is discussed in an article that looks into possibilities to narrow the gaps between urban planning and development. Smart and eco-cities in Europe and China are taken as an empirical base. Advanced methods, such as the Social Cost–Benefit Analysis, may support social integration. Finally, an example of how the use of multiple data sources can speed up the digital transition in cities and provide decision support for social integration is presented. The final set of articles (No. 14 and 15) deal with questions of replicability of experiences and the role of concrete urban experiments in so-called Urban Living Laboratories. Methods to explore the replication potential of urban solutions for socially integrative cities are discussed. Finally, the potential of urban living laboratories for nurturing open urban innovation in Chinese cities is scrutinized. Several examples are discussed, and conclusions regarding the enhancement of social integration in cities are drawn. The book is edited by Bernhard Müller (Technische Universität Dresden, TUD), Baojun Yang (China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, CAUPD), Liu Jian (Tsinghua University), Jianming Cai (China Academy of Sciences, CAS), Paulina Schiappacasse (TUD) and Hans-Martin Neumann (Austrian Institute of Technology, AIT)

An Outlier Detection Algorithm Based on Cross-Correlation Analysis for Time Series Dataset

Outlier detection is a very essential problem in a variety of application areas. Many detection methods are deficient for high-dimensional time series data sets containing both isolated and assembled outliers. In this paper, we propose an Outlier Detection method based on Cross-correlation Analysis (ODCA). ODCA consists of three key parts. They are data preprocessing, outlier analysis, and outlier rank. First, we investigate a linear interpolation method to convert assembled outliers into isolated ones. Second, a detection mechanism based on the cross-correlation analysis is proposed for translating the high-dimensional data sets into 1-D cross-correlation function, according to which the isolated outlier is determined. Finally, a multilevel Otsu\u27s method is adopted to help us select the rank thresholds adaptively and output the abnormal samples at different levels. To illustrate the effectiveness of the ODCA algorithm, four experiments are performed using several high-dimensional time series data sets, which include two smallscale sets and two large-scale sets. Furthermore, we compare the proposed algorithm with the detection methods based on wavelet analysis, bilateral filtering, particle swarm optimization, auto-regression, and extreme learning machine. In addition, we discuss the robustness of the ODCA algorithm. The statistical results show that the ODCA algorithm is much better than existing mainstream methods in both effectiveness and time complexity

The Beneficial Past: Promoting Adaptive Reuse as a Beneficial Design Method for East and South-East Asia

The pace of modernizing Asian cities has created a threat of erasing their architectural heritage, history, and sense of place. This is true particularly in regard with many industrial neighborhoods and utilitarian buildings that are not considered as ‘important’ part of architecture heritage than older monuments and other preservation sites. This Doctor of Architecture research project will provide clear evidence to show that many exisiting industrial buildings in Asia are not only significant part of the architectural heritage of their context, but also potential targets for adaptive reuse. Hence, this study defines adaptive reuse as a beneficial, green design method for Asian cities, citizens, and developers alike. The method of adaptive reuse should be practiced in East and South East Asia, on industrial and utilitarian buildings, to prevent the disappearance of urban historic character. However, the practice should be authentic, preserve original materials, and not replicate portions that are nonexistent. The focus of this research is to cover adaptive reuse of industrial and utilitarian buildings, an architecture that is often underutilized, unnoticed, and demolished without a whim of thought in Asia. The focus cities of Beijing, Yokohama, Kuala Lumpur, and Singapore will be used for this research, because elucidating examples of successful adaptive reuse can be found in these cities. In addition, this research will discuss international case studies of adaptive reuse in order to further develop basis for the applications of adaptive reuse method in Asia. This project will center around seven conjectures to why Asian urban developers might be reluctant to adaptively reuse buildings. The seven conjectures will define: Appropriate adaptive reuse, clarify adaptive reuse, address issues of danger in adaptive reuse, address the significant histories of industrial development of Asian cities, discuss the interest in adaptive reuse, illustrate the profitability for adaptive reuse, and finally conform international standards that fit the Asian context. This project’s conclusion will illustrate that by changing the function of old industrial buildings in Asia, they can continue to be part of the architectural heritage of their location, and preserve its sense of place. This D.Arch project does not seek to change the world, but aims to warn against wanton demolition of the existing built environment for the sake of development