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What is it like to live a community life in Chengdu?
Four words: enviable.
In recent years, Chengdu's urban territory has been expanding,
More than 3,000 communities spread over the streets,
In the Chengdu community, you can see various magical scenes:
Uncle Teahouse, will set up a dragon gate array with young people,
Bundy scene, the baby jumped harder than the young man...
Late August,
One visited three examples of community building in Chengdu,
Zhang Tang in the alley,
Liu Yang of the Fire Collection Laboratory,
Zhou Zishu of the Sweet Potato Community,
Chatted about their community practices and lives.
Written by Chen Qin, responsible editor Chen Ziwen
In the light rain in Chengdu, on the Hongxing Bridge in Chengbei Province, we bumped into a wonderful scene on the other side: a middle-aged uncle playing the violin affectionately; near the left, another middle-aged uncle was calm and calm and playing tai chi.
In the mist of smoke and rain, along the river embankment for a quarter of an hour, turn into the construction road. Food shops along the street, full of fireworks. Hot pot skewers, old mother's hoof flowers, streetside and museum, all kinds of flavors and crowds gathered, Huanghuang lights illuminate the streets and alleys, the second floor of the amaranth bean dried shop, Chengdu Grandma's home balcony hanging upside down two wax plate ducks, she in the night, leaning out of her head to look.
A community is a microcosm of a society. The Japanese imported concept of "community building", literally translated as "doing community", from material construction, turning into spiritual construction, what the community has to do is to make ordinary people live a little more likely.
In 2019, Chengdu pioneered the "Municipal Party Committee social governance committee", from top to bottom, to promote chengdu's community creation, lively scenes, such as fire cooking oil.
Chengdu people are extremely open. The uncle who drinks tea at the community tea house occasionally goes to the café for a drink and mingles with young people who love subcultures; near the landmark fashion space Of Taikoo Li, there are fly houses full of "Kaka Kok Cape (corner corner)"; "Bundy Night" in the community carport, where the baby dances more happily than the young people.
In the north gate of Chengdu, we visited Liu Yang's fire collection laboratory and Zhou Zishu's sweet potato community, and saw two completely different community construction scenes-
More than a decade ago, architect Liu Yang remodeled an old factory building located on Shima Road Street. Later, this space gradually became the soil for innovation in the Xiaoguanmiao community, and many interesting activities took place here. C.I.E.'s professor, Zhou Zishu, is best known for renovating a basement in Beijing. In 2018, he came to Chengdu and took root for three years, transferring the sweet potato community from "underground to aboveground" and bringing a new place for the residents of The Caojia lane community in Chengdu.
Community residents in the alley
We also went to the Yulin area where "fire spreads all over the country", met the post-90s architect Zhang Tang, and listened to this young man talk about many ways to play life.
On our last night in Chengdu, we visited "YOU Chengdu", a local platform for life aesthetics in Chengdu. For three years, they have been wandering the streets and alleys of Chengdu, making comprehensive and nuanced reports on Chengdu's community building and urban renewal...
Zhang Tang: One more way to play life
Walking into the "alley", you will find that the entrance corridor is particularly spacious, and Zhang Tang has her unique consideration when designing.
Located in the alley of Yulin East Road Community, it is currently a community café and a community cultural space, carrying many community activities.
Zhang Tang is in a small park on Yulin East Road Community
Zhang Tang is a native of Chengdu, graduated from the University of Tokyo's Department of Architecture, and grew up on the streets. When it comes to chengdu's urban atmosphere, she likes to use the Chengdu dialect "tooth tip" to describe it.
The so-called "tip of the tooth" refers to the fact that Chengdu people hang out all day long, like to stay in a public space, and love to make some humorous comments about things, "this behavior is very communal."
The identity of the architect has made her interested in community building, especially in complex old communities, how can people from different backgrounds use a public space?
Zhang Tang was interviewed in an alley
In 2018, Yulin Street released a recruitment of community planners, and Zhang Tang initially joined as a volunteer. Later, Community Street cooperated with Zhang Tang and invited her to upgrade an office building in the community.
Zhang Tang positioned the alley as a "community-friendly space", and during the preliminary research, she and her team went deep into the homes of residents, invited residents to join the discussion, and collected many samples.
Community resident Xiao Wu
A community-friendly space, what is friendliness? From the use of hard space, the elderly are inconvenient to their legs and feet, children will inevitably bump and bump, and then lift up, and the disabled are the people who need more attention.
As the survey progressed, she found that there were about 250 registered people with disabilities in the community. Therefore, when designing the alley, she deliberately widened the corridor of the population, designed a slope of 1.4 meters, and left the distance required for the 360-degree rotation of the wheelchair to meet the wheelchair and the escort.
Braille on the armrest
The handrail of the promenade leads directly to the small community park at the other end of the space, and there will be Braille on the handrail, indicating where the disabled have gone.
Community residents are small five and often appear in alleys. Because of the physical inconvenience caused by neurological diseases, he needed a wheelchair to travel. On the day of our shooting, we happened to meet Little Five to drink coffee.
The hearing impaired brother bai fan at the bar
In addition to providing spatial convenience for the disabled in the community, Bai Fan, the "silent" barista at the bar, is also a hearing-impaired boy. After seeing the recruitment plan for trainees, Bai Fan took the initiative to find out, hoping to join the big family of the community. On weekdays, they use their mobile phones to type to communicate.
This new space hidden in the old community is actually not large, only 150 square meters. When Zhang Tang designed, he hoped to carry as many possibilities of use as possible in a limited space.
The white roof, the wooden structure throughout, the entire space uses a large number of floor-to-ceiling doors and windows, and the view is particularly transparent. Some of the bumpy layouts, open windows, and close contact with the environment and the street. When the weather is good, the shadows of the trees are reflected on the ceiling, mottled and particularly soft.
For several years, the alley has been doing exhibitions, and various young people's activities have been carried out here, "so that residents can be exposed to more interesting things besides playing mahjong and walking around the bend, and they will no longer be afraid to step into places such as art galleries." ”
Last year, a "cinema for the blind" event was held here. Eclectic, non-visually impaired people are also welcome to participate, everyone here to drink craft beer, nibble chicken feet, will not feel that the visual impairment is a special thing.
In 2019, she also launched a "community art project" in an abandoned bicycle shed in the Yulin East Road community.
The abandoned carport will be transformed into a public exhibition space, artists and community residents will be invited to complete the artwork together, and various workshops and courses will be shared here. One night, the carport turned into a bungee scene, and nearly 300 people participated, "Auntie bungee is happier than young people."
Zhang Tang always hopes that the new things of young people can be brought into the old community, "so that life has one more way to play, and everyone is no longer afraid to walk into trendy places such as art museums." ”
To her, the community is like a small garden where all sorts of exotic flowers grow. To do community building is not to organize and build them, but to care for these flowers and let them grow naturally.
Liu Yang: "The community is a situation for me"
Liu Yang was almost 50 years old, and he couldn't see his age at all.
He usually likes to go to the back street of Xiaoguanmiao and walk the bend of Shima Road, and perceive the creativity of "poor streets and dark alleys", and people here call him "Xiaoguanmiao Community Sun God".
In 2010, feeling the lack of grassroots creativity, he and Judy and his wife founded the "Collective Fire Laboratory" – as a "pan-public space" and also let people who want to "toss" have a scene.
Located in the old city north of Chengdu, the main body of the fire laboratory is an abandoned printing plant from 1965, which has undergone two expansions, and three adjacent old buildings, namely living, working and public space, which are administratively under the jurisdiction of the Xiaoguanmiao community.
Before the renovation, it was a printing house and a warehouse
Creative spaces scattered throughout Chengdu's neighborhoods are not uncommon, but Beicheng has always been a "cultural wasteland." Liu Yang believes that in these lost spaces, there can still be human dignity.
The transformation of the space, which he calls "wild construction", does not make specific drawings, hardly changes the pattern, and uses a large number of industrial and cheap materials to create "daily miracles": the lifting stage made of recycled materials has become a symbol of the fire. At the top of the main space, supported by only two beams.
More than a decade ago, "community building" was just emerging, and the collection fire laboratory was initially not so public. Later, he saw the space as a semi-open living room in the city, doing a lot of community connection activities.
Here once launched a "Dam Dance × Independent Short Film" campaign, inviting aunts who dance square dance in the community to watch the independent short film screening, the content of the film, recording the story of ordinary people dancing square dance. The community aunts came to gather fire in advance, set up a dragon gate array, and the lifting stage in the space quickly filled up.
Without the "magic mashup" of square dancing and independent short films, perhaps the community aunts would not have been exposed to independent films in their lives.
The most down-to-earth community activity is the "Street Games". In this "anti-professional, anti-form, and environmentally friendly" sports meeting, watermelons, water bottles, garbage bags, tables and chairs and benches have become the most core props.
Kick keys, watermelon relay run, wrench wrist, cockfight... In addition, the street sports meeting of the fire will also invite bands, DJs, and extreme sports performers to participate, and the scene is very lively, and after the "blood competition", Liu Yang can always win the all-round champion of the Xiaoguanmiao Community Street Games.
Zhou Zishu: Real Community, Real Life
At about 9:00 a.m., the store manager Kaka came to the Sweet Potato Community in Caojia Lane and began to prepare for the day's work. She is a resident of the Caojia Lane community and was once a stay-at-home mom.
For Kaka, it's a rewarding job. At the doorstep, you can walk 5 minutes to reach it, so you can realize yourself and take care of your family at the same time. The sweet potato community has a space called "Mamaland", where Kaka and other moms in the community often organize activities, yoga, Pilates, mutual aid clubs, and even entrepreneurial projects and skills training.
Chengdu Sweet Potato Community Team: Li Hongrui (second from left), manager Kaka (second from right)
Li Hongrui, a native of Lanzhou, joined the sweet potato community as a volunteer in 2014 and is now responsible for the daily operation of the sweet potato community in Chengdu, and has settled in Chengdu. He became acquainted with sweet potatoes because he listened to a lecture by Zhou Zishu.
Zhou Zishu's name was once associated with basement renovation in Beijing and community building. In 2015, he worked in workshops and movie theaters in the basement of Beijing, through various transformations, so that ordinary people living in the basement have cooler public spaces and life possibilities.
Zhou Zishu, founder of the sweet potato community
In 2018, he was invited by the Jinniu District Government of Chengdu to land the sweet potato community in caojia lane community in Jinniu District.
To this end, Zhou Zishu took root in Chengdu for three years. From early research to space transformation, he brought CAFA students and came into contact with a large number of Chengdu citizens. Interviews, records, paintings, and finally formed a 4×5 meters hand-painted Caojia Lane community humanities map.
Talking to people on the side of the road, going in and out of various fly restaurants, and learning the most interesting attitude to life from Chengdu people is the three words "it doesn't matter". He has been doing design for many years and has the ultimate pursuit of details, which has made him suffer from anxiety for two years, and the relaxed atmosphere of Chengdu has relaxed his mentality.
The day we met Zhou Zishu, he was wearing a striped T-shirt and a yellow canvas bag containing several sociology books — summer vacation was his "self-study time" and he was in a very casual state.
Under the surrounding buildings, the logo of the sweet potato community is particularly eye-catching, and the uncles sit on the bamboo chairs at the entrance of the community, drinking tea and playing cards at the same time.
Tiger stove on a few mouthfuls of large soup pots, steaming hot air open, oil pot sugar oil fruit golden oil, as soon as you enter the sweet potato community, is Yan Erge's "sugar oil fruit shop when I was a child", but also a tea house.
In Zhou Zishu's view, the tea house is the earliest community public space in China, in the era of material shortage, everyone collectively boiled water, and all community activities and mediation of neighborhood disputes occurred in the tea house.
Zhou Zishu cares about how a public space gives community residents a new right, rather than intervening in the design of the space with "power". "Respecting real-life practices is extremely important for community building."
This year, "Living Like Chengdu People - A Guide to Chengdu Community Roaming" was published by YOU Chengdu
It can be said that the pace of media records is about to fail to keep up with the speed of community development in Chengdu.
"15-minute life circle" has almost become a reality: residents living in every corner of Chengdu, within 15 minutes of walking, can meet the daily grocery shopping, eating food, bars, teahouses, cafes and other needs, leisure walking urban greenways, hidden in the community streets with a strong cultural atmosphere of small exhibition halls, education and medical care...
The old city and the new city, the streets and new spaces, the community life of Chengdu people, is more colorful than we think. The story of the Chengdu community is far from over.