Li Ji: Urban renewal should pass on cultural characteristics

Li Ji, President of Qingda Cultural And Industrial (Beijing) Planning and Design Research Institute

On September 28th, the 2021 Beijing International Design Week "City Imprint" Innovation and Development International Summit, hosted by the Office of the Organizing Committee of Beijing International Design Week and co-sponsored by the Planning and Design Institute of Qingda Cultural And Industrial (Beijing) Planning and Design, was successfully held at the China Millennium Monument in Beijing. As the core international section of the Beijing Design Week series of activities, the "Urban Imprint" International Summit on Innovation and Development, the conference focused on the future development of cities in the "post-epidemic era", focusing on how to use new technologies to empower culture and creativity under the parallel promotion of epidemic prevention and control and the resumption of work and production, and provide more forward-looking and optimized development plans, models and concepts for urban renewal. The conference gathered guests to discuss new opportunities and new chapters of global urban renewal by bringing together ambassadors and counsellors of relevant countries in China, local government leaders and relevant responsible persons of outstanding enterprises and institutions, design institutions, investment institutions and so on. Beijing International Design Week, jointly organized by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism and the Beijing Municipal Government, is the first international event after the outbreak of the epidemic with the theme of "Creative Empowerment + Butterfly Change in The City", and Phoenix Culture supported the event as a strategic cooperation media.

At the scene of the event, Li Ji, president of the Planning and Design Research Institute of Qingda Cultural Industry (Beijing), was interviewed by Fenghuang Culture.

The transcript of the interview is as follows:

Reporter: An epidemic has changed every aspect of our lives, what do you think is the biggest challenge facing China's urban development today? How to deal with it?

Li Ji: At present, China's urban development is actually facing the following problems: First, how to transform and upgrade the city's traditional industries. Cities cannot exist without industrial support, and people cannot live and work in peace and contentment. The "traditional industries" in the cities we see today refer to the "secondary industries" in the past industrialization era, and the next step is to upgrade these industries through intelligent integration. The third block is the important tertiary industry in the city. In fact, the tertiary industry is very important, it can be divided into two categories, one is the living service industry, covering urban hotels, shopping malls, catering and so on. Due to the change of consumption patterns, the next step will be to carry out industrial transformation for personalized, diversified and decentralized consumption propositions. The other is the most important productive service industry, which is also an industry that supports the core competitiveness and development vitality of the city in the future. The productive service industry includes finance, science and technology, research and development, creativity, logistics, culture and other fields. This is the core attraction for cities to gather high-quality people, and it is also a huge opportunity and challenge in China's urban development.

Reporter: What is the new connotation of the significance of design for urban renewal in the new era, and what aspects are mainly reflected in the current urban development?

Li Ji: First of all, the most important thing in the process of renewal of the city is to retain the city's geographical, cultural, human and meridian veins. Let the city pass on the cultural characteristics in the overall development process. Secondly, in addition to the renewal of physical space, urban renewal must also adapt to the lifestyle and working habits of modern people, which is to consider human factors in urban renewal. Third, urban renewal and urban revitalization should be aimed at the industrial development of future cities and the creation of core competitiveness, and adapt to the development trend of future exhibition industry and the development direction of cities.

Reporter: For the theme of this conference" "Creative Empowerment + Industry city butterfly change", how do you understand and what suggestions do you have?

Li Ji: In the theme of this event, innovation empowerment is very important. Now looking at the overall development of a city, a country, and a region, in fact, it is not to look at the size, population, resources or industry of the city, but to see whether the city's innovation mechanism and innovation system in the future can become a huge driving force and development force to support the entire development of the city in the future, which is a very important point of innovation empowerment. Without innovation, there will be no urban development, and cities without innovation will lose their core competitiveness. The butterfly change of the city refers to the integration of industry, city, culture and people into a system of the city, making it a whole.