Specificity and continuity of spatial structure in urban communities in Shanghai: the case of Siping Road

Chinese cities are fantastically dynamic places, and this is strikingly true for cities like Shanghai. Since more than thirty years the city of Shanghai, its districts, and its communities are an immense laboratory of test and errors, failure and success, in community building and urban design. Yet, communities, in the Chinese connotation of the word, are also laboratory from which designers should learn for developing innovation. This is especially true for Siping Road community. This article is about how the spatial structure of the urban community of Siping Road in Shanghai works in real life and how it can be imagined in the future. Our methodology is based on research by design of site-specific projects with the aim to provide a criticism and a systematic understanding of sustainable development of Shanghai’s urban communities.