Towards a sustainable housing environment:
Ecological landscape principles and practices in
large housing estates of Guangzhou, China
Junyan He, Beisi Jia
Department of Architecture, The University of Hong Kong
jyhe@hkusua.hku.hk
Abstract
Sustainable development of housing environment is of growing concern in China’s urban development. As the capital of Guangdong Province as well as the largest city in south China,
Guangzhou is now experiencing a large-scale housing development. Residential landscape is
considered as the main means of creating a comfortable housing environment. Large amounts
of money have been invested in residential landscape construction. This paper aims at investigating the ecological landscape principles for large housing estates in Guangzhou, China in
order to lead toward a more sustainable housing environment. The study is divided into two
parts. The first part builds up the principle framework based on related literature review on
ecology and landscape, and puts forward ecological landscape as the form that can not only
minimize environmentally destructive impacts but also cultivate a harmonious people-plants
relationship. The second part of this paper evaluates the validity of the claim of ‘ecological
estates’ and ‘garden estates’ in the housing market. The above five principles will then be
used as parameters for case evaluation and comparison. The research findings suggest that
towards a sustainable housing environment, what seems to be essential to an ecological residential landscape is neither the amount of finical resources that has been put into the landscape construction, nor the green-coverage-rate of the overall housing estate; but rather the
abidance with the five ecological landscape principles.
Keywords
Sustainability, housing environment, ecological residential landscape
1. Introduction: ecological landscape principles in housing development
In 1992, the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) put
forward the concept of sustainability, which is defined as “development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own
needs”. Some years later, sustainable housing development has become a growing concern in
China (Liu et al., 2001; Zhang, 1998; Ren, 2000; Jia, 1999).
Landscape has a very close relationship with housing and buildings. Urban green areas, both
public open spaces like parks and private planted areas around buildings, can have a marked
effect on many aspects of the quality of the urban environment and the richness of life in a
city (Givoni, 1998). In the residential community, landscape can affect the housing in the
surroundings. Different kinds of internal courtyards and attached enclosed open spaces may
affect the housing climatic characteristics. It shows that landscapes have a very close relationship with housing environment.
Ecological planning and design seek to make nature visible and to develop ecological characteristics in landscaping (Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996). Many studies criticize the human-centered tendency in landscaping where intensive human recreation and leisure activities
may damage ecological processes, ecological integrity and system productivity. To move towards sustainable development, it is suggested that indigenous landscape patterns should be
conserved, cultivated and revitalized (Platt et. al., [ed], 1994). In residential communities,
ecological landscape addresses not only environmental protection but also the interrelationship between people and nature. Landscape planning and design principles should promote
ecological integrity while forming a balanced social and physical environment. Landscaping
should help to form sustainable communities that offer opportunities for participation that
encourage new modes of interaction among residents. Human beings are living social groups
and active participation by the residents can help to achieve sustainability (Grant et al. 1996).
Planners cannot create sustainable communities without having the commitment from residents to modify or adapt their behavior or attitudes towards caring for the landscape around
them. Residents may take part in the design process to express themselves in the surrounding
environment; work together to take care of the landscape; or obtain knowledge about planting
and ecology.
The formulated five principles are:
1.1 Applying indigenous plants
The maximizing use of the indigenous plants is a very important idea in ecological landscape.
A sustainable landscape requires minimum use of indirect solar inputs of energy, materials,
and labor (Platt et al., [ed], 1994). Indigenous plants are cheaper and easier to suit the surroundings than the exotic ones (Greed & Roberts, 1998). They are well-suited for the local
climate and easy to grow. Any virgin, untouched landscape in natural setting offers good
bio-diversity models to learn from (Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996). The quantity of the indigenous plants should occupy a dominant percentage in the whole residential landscaping.
1.2 Minimizing energy-resource consumption and labour input in landscape maintenance
During the residential landscape maintenance, energy-resource consumption becomes a big
problem and should be minimized. This can be achieved by careful selection of indigenous
plants, imported wildlife species and proper landscape design layout. Local plants in their
natural setting effectively need no manual labor, energy or resource input except the sun, and
can grow well depending on their own species competition regime (Platt et al., [ed], 1994).
Comparing with the hard pavement, vegetation covering can create natural habitats and permit better absorption of rainfall by natural means which implies cost savings in water management. Recent 20 years, ‘drought-resistant plants’ are popularized in America, for example
use some beautiful drought-resistant shrub to replace the large irrigated grassland in order to
save water (Makhzoumi & Pungetti, 1999).
“Wildflower meadows” is defined as diverse communities of native and naturalized forbs and
grasses, and it can also enhance awareness of seasonal changes and expose surrounding vistas
(Platt et al, [ed] 1994). It is considered that wildflower meadows are sustainable landscape. It
2
is also suggested that wildflower meadows should be prosperous in residential community
(Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996). To our thinking, wildflower meadow can be one of the
methods to build up a sustainable landscape. Because it need few manual labor input, it can
support more wild insects and wildlife habitats, and it can also express the original aesthetic
of the plants themselves with no artificial factors. These are the benefits called economic,
ecological and aesthetic. Wildness should be permitted with wise use in the sustainable development (Grumbine, 1994)
Recycling the water supply in the estate is another positive approach. There are three water
resources in residential landscaping, including natural rainfall resource, underground water
resource and manual irrigation. The natural rainfall resource can hardly supply the underground water because the hard pavement and man-made pipe in the estate. Therefore, the
consideration of how to collect and apply the natural rainfall resource in the housing estate is
very important.
1.3 Increasing biodiversity and micro eco-environment
Ecological greenery provides good base conditions for biota to diversify and multiply. Biodiversity allows a mixture of diversified plants and wildlife including insects and birds. Inserting and maintaining a high level of biodiversity in residential landscaping is necessary to
create an authentic ecological environment (Greed & Roberts, 1998). Strengthen the relationship between water and plants can help to form a good eco-environment. The green
spaces which consist of monotonous plant coverage play a lower eco-efficiency than the
compound green space which made up of plants and waterbody. On one hand, water vapor
may bring plenty nutrients to the plants surrounded and help them to grown more flourishing.
On the other hand, plants can help to purify the water body. Therefore, water-growth plant
type and waterside plant type should be encouraged in the residential landscaping in order to
provide the possibility of forming micro eco-environment. Wetland is a good example. It is
an ideal base for biodiversity and eco-environment and should be given plenty of consideration in the housing construction procedure.
1.4 Continuity of the greenery
McHarg wrote in his book Design with Nature that the different scaled greenery system may
bring a comfortable living environment and healthy micro-climate to the whole world
(McHarg, 1969). In the past 20 century, many European cities are attempting to bring nature
into the city-centre and to develop physical and ecological connections between built-up areas of the city and surrounding natural areas and greenspaces. Corridors and ecological connections can be found to various degrees in a number of these cities (Beatley, 2000). These
ecological corridors intended to provide connections and migration opportunities between
core areas. At the residential level, ensuring the continuity of the greenery may help to develop ecological corridors inside the estate and at the same time form a systematic greenery
environment (Fang & Li, 2001).
1.5 Enhance the relationship between people and greenery
In residential communities, ecological landscapes address not only environmental protection
but also the interrelationship between people and nature. Landscape planning and design
principles should promote ecological integrity while forming a balanced social and physical
environment. Landscaping should help to form sustainable communities that offer opportunities for participation that encourage new modes of interaction among residents. Planners
3
cannot create sustainable communities without having the commitment from residents to
modify or adapt their behavior or attitudes towards caring for the landscape around them.
Residents may take part in the design process to express themselves in the surrounding environment; work together to take care of the landscape; or obtain knowledge about planting and
ecology (Roe, 2000; Van der Ryn & Cowan, 1996; Grant et al., 1996).
2. Problems from Practice in Guangzhou, China
China is now experiencing a high speed urbanization trend which accompanied with
large-scaled real estate development especially in Canton. From 1990s, in Canton
Pearl-River-Delta, urbanization has reached to 67% of the total area and real estate developments have occupied large amount of it. Guangzhou, the center city of this region, is characterized by the new residential development expanding to the suburban area. The built area of
Guangzhou has been enlarged by 1.8 times within these 20 years (Guangzhou Statistics Almanac, 1991-2001). In the urban planning agenda of Guangzhou, the southern PanYu District
which attached to the downtown area is planned to be developed into a residential region (Fig.
1). Already, a large-scaled and multi-leveled new residential district agglomeration has
evolved there (Fig. 2). At the same time, because of the high population density, traffic jams
and poor air quality, etc. in the downtown area, people are more willing to move to the suburban area.
During China’s high-speed housing development, the national construction department in
Beijing has draft the 34% criterion of the “greenery-rate” for housing estate. Therefore the
greenery-rate becomes a main goal in the housing development. In Guangzhou, large
amounts of money have been invested in residential landscape construction, such as importing foreign plant species, paving large area of grassland in order to achieve high green-rate of
the estate. For example, Yun-Jin Garden uses 5o million on its 30 thousand square meters
residential landscapes. Many of them boast of “ecological estate” and “garden estate” with a
high greenery-rate.
Table 1 Greenery-rate in Guangzhou housing estate
National
Criterion
34%
Riverside
Garden
34.5%
South
Olympic
35.51%
Star River
40%
Central Park
View
43.6%
Global Villa
52%
Most of the estates in Guangzhou have exceeded the national greenery-rate criterion. The
Central Park View housing estate which located in ZhuJiang new district even boasts that the
green-coverage-rate in the estate has reached to 100% because of its distinguished roof gardens and “garden in the air”.
4
Fig.1 Diagrammatic map of Guangzhou and location of PanYu District
Real estates
Fig.2 Residential estates distribution map of PanYu District
5
However, even with a high greenery-rate, some of the residential landscapes are in a low biodiversity (Yang 1997; Hao, et al. 2001; Ou, 2001). The concept of “how it looks” rather than
“how it works” has dominated the current residential landscape design (Chen, et al. 2001; Ou,
2001; Liu, 2001; Hao, et al. 2001). Residential landscapes are mostly designed to visually
please the residents but this approach results in high maintenance costs. This kind of anthropocentric landscape becomes very common now. At the same time, large energy consumption
is also a big problem which includes labor input, fertilizer and water use, etc (Hao, et al. 2001;
Han & Yang, 2001; Jia, 2001). Although Guangzhou has claimed itself as water-shortage free
city, the whole country is still in the circumstance of shorting of water supply. Meanwhile, the
water consumption amount of Guangzhou has now largely exceeded the national standard
(Table 2). The water problem should be paid more attention to.
Table 2 Water consumption in China and Guangzhou
National standard
180-220 liter
Housing design capacity in
Guangzhou
300-350 liter
Actual consumption in
Guangzhou
500 liter
3. Case evaluation and analysis
Three cases are selected here for compare evaluation and analysis: Riverside Garden
(810,000 m2), Global Villa (730,000 m2) and Star River (800,000 m2).
3.1 Applying indigenous plants
Case 1: Riverside Garden
Total land area of Riverside Garden is 810,000 square meter. Green coverage takes 275,000
square meters, i.e., 34% of the total land area. There are many different plant species, including bushes, wetland plants, bamboo and liana. There are a spatial variety and interrelated layers of spaces. Open spaces are enriched by water body, groups of trees, passages and little
hills (Table 3). Boast of its plentiful landscape environment, Kang-Cheng-Ju is selected as the
case neighborhood here for evaluation and analysis (Fig.3).
Fig.3 Bird’s-eye View of Kang-Cheng-Ju
Characterized a courtyard garden, Kang-cheng-ju outdoor space was designed based on
Ling-Nan garden (a traditional southern China garden type) principles. The garden contains a
small lake, water full manipulated by a recycling system, several small pavilion-like buildings, and 52 different kinds of trees, bushes and grass, providing a high potential of biodiversity. Almost all the plants are belong to the local species, such as Mei-ren-jiao (Canna gener6
alis Bailey), Da-ye-rong (Ficus virens Ait.var.sublanceolata (Miq.) Corner), and Mu-mian
(Bombax ceiba L.). All of these bring a potential biodiversity environment.
Table 3 Plant categories statistics in Kang-Cheng-Ju
Neighborhoods
Kang-Cheng-Ju
Arbor Categories
20
Shrub Categories
31
Land for greenery (m2)
13,770
Case 2: Global Villa
Phase 1 and Phase 2 of Global Villa add up to 400,000 square meters, including 200, 000
square meters greenery. To-date the development continues with construction of Phase 3
which put on the market last August. Phase 3 is named Mountains & Water Garden which not
only occupies 330, 000 square meters but also boasts a high level greenery area 190,000
square meters. The overall greenery rate of the estate reached to 52%.
Table 4 Ecological Factors in Global Villa
Item
Residents average greenery area
Greenery rate
Co2 absorb
o2 release
Plant categories
Arbor and shrub species
Indigenous %
Quantity
29.7m2 per person
52%
500 Ton per day
392 Ton per day
277 Species
500,000
98%
In the aspect of importing foreign plants species, Global Villa boasts of its high-class status
with eight Phoenix Canariensis which has an expensive price of 120,000 RMB per plant.
Case 3: Star River
Founded in 2000, Star River Estate totally occupied 800,000 square meters. Up to date, it has
a developed area of 460,000 square meters which including 180,000 square meters greenery.
Phrase 1 consists of four neighborhoods – Langxin, Changxin, Yixin and Yixin. The largest
Langxin community is selected as the case community in this paper (Fig. 4).
Fig.4 Landscape of Langxin neighborhood
7
In order to express a natural and tropical feeling, Star River uses hundreds of tropical and
sub-tropical plants in its residential landscaping, for examples the majorities are Palmaceae
and Ficus. These local categories are arranged with different levels and species in order to
form a plentiful living environment for the residents. Besides these indigenous plants categories, Star River also imports several foreign species which has already been domesticated for
purpose of increasing biodiversity of the estates. The plants species are: Phoenix Canariensis,
Ceiba pentandra, Terminalia mantaly, etc. Phoenix Canariensis is still the most expensive
plant here with the price around 100,000 RMB per item. The other plants are relatively less
expensive with a price between 100 RMB ~ 200 RMB per item.
Discussion
By comparison, it is found out that the estates in Guangzhou now have achieved some progress in popularizing the indigenous plants in residential landscaping. The quantity of indigenous plants has a dominate percentage in the landscaping. At the same time, properly
importing foreign plants which has been domesticated can help to form a more plentiful environment. Phoenix Canariensis seems to be in great demand which stands for high class and
honorable. However, the landscape price should be given more consideration to. The price of
Phoenix Canariensis is really very expensive compared with other local species and is also
difficult to maintain. The trend of pursuing luxury landscape should be changed.
3.2 Minimizing energy-resource consumption and labour input in landscape maintenance
Case 1: Riverside Garden
Take Kang-Cheng-Ju neighborhood as an example. Characterized a courtyard garden
Kang-Yuan, Kang-Cheng-Ju has achieved some progress in its plentiful and variety plants
species. However, the management company experienced some the technical complications,
due to the various plants demanding different maintenance. The current labor distribution is
shown in the below (Table 5):
Table 5 Labor distribution in Kang-Yuan Garden greenery management
Item
Gardening
Cleaning
Managed area
number
4 workers
4 workers
5062 m2 per worker
The majority plants in Kang-Cheng-Ju are ever-green species and deciduous trees are minor
part which only includes Da-Ye-Rong (Ficus lacor Buch) and Da-Hua-Zi-Wei (Lagerstroemia speciosa). Normally, the labour input in this area should be less intensive. But the fact is
that it is difficult to meet residents and house owners’ demanding on a clean and tidy, modern
style garden. For example, some residents complain of “bad management”, because they saw
leaves or grass turning yellow in winter, which is actually natural with Da-Hua-Zi-Wei (Fig. 5
a). They refer to an adjacent neighborhood in which the large lawn with pointed trees in it is
green all seasons. The lawn was an Australian species imported to China through Taiwan. It
got a nickname as “Taiwan lawn” (Zoysia mafrella). To keep it green and clean, a set of routine work is needed: providing fertilizer every 20 days, removing other species every 4 weeks,
and cutting every month in summer. Management work is more labor intensive and costs are
8
higher (Fig. 5 b). It is certainly not ecologically sound. Therefore what’s the most important
to avoid this circumstance is to change the residents’ attitude toward ecology.
(a)
(b)
Fig.5 Labor input in Kang-Yuan Garden
A major ecological setback is witnessed in landscape maintenance, in which tap-water was
only water resource. According to national standard, every square meter of green lawn needs
2-4 liter of water per day. The current water rate in Guangzhou is 1.74RMB per cubic meter
and considering 34% of land is green area in the estate, the total water cost of the estate is
around 34,930 every year. The large lake in the middle of the estate was completely
man-made and filled with tap-water twice, totally about 3000 cubit meter, since it was built in
1995 (Fig. 6). The problem has been addressed and solutions such as using water from adjacent river or from underground, has been investigated. However, they were not implemented
because of the high costs of duplicating water supply system, complication of management,
and also, the instability of river water quality. The under ground water contains high degree
of salt and treatment was believed un-economical. Using recycled domestic gray water for
gardening is gong to be implemented. In the newly built town house area, all greenery will be
maintained with recycled water. Kang-Cheng-Ju has a low actual occupation ratio, around
30% of total stock. The recycled water is still not sufficient for gardening, although it is
planned to be operated in the near future. A plan to use water from the lake nearby is under
investigation.
Fig.6 The center lake of Riverside Garden
9
Case 2: Global Villa
The Greenery Company of Global Villa is in charges of the following works: trimming, irrigation and spraying pesticide. The whole estate is divided into four zones and the management labour is distributed as the following (Table 6):
Table 6 Labor distribution in Global Villa greenery management
Level (low – high)
Item
Handyman
Sweep floor, clean
Comprehensive work：trim,
3rd gardener
nd
spray pesticide, insects detection
2 gardener
1st gardener
Managed area : 3000~5000 m2 per worker
Arrangement
Arrange according to the real
environment requirement
In the aspect of applying fertilizer, on one hand, organic fertilizer is used in autumn and winter to maintain the nutrition. On the other hand, Carbamide and compound fertilizer are used
in spring and summer to accelerate the plants growth. The total grassland area in Global Villa
is 50,000 square meters and it need 2 cuttings per month in spring and summer period. And
the total labor input is 12 workers. The whole greenery maintenance water in Global Villa is
tap-water. Except the Golf Practice Court uses automatic irrigation, all the other places are
manual irrigation. The total water cost of the estate is around 36,000 every year.
Global Villa is characterized for its famous water system Lago-Di-Com (Fig. 8). The whole
water system in Global Villa is consisting of natural water, including the underground water
from the surrounded mountain and the rainfall collection. In order to insure collection amount
of the rainfall, the landscape water-block boundary design1 can be found all over the estate
(Fig. 7).
Fig.7 landscape water-block boundary design
Case 3: Star River
In order to reduce the use of the pesticide and fertilizer, Star River has put some special considerations on plants species selection. For example, Ficus are the primary species in the
residential landscaping because it is indigenous and fewer insects affected. What’s more, it
can also bring a more sub-tropic feeling living environment. In order to save water, some
water-resist plants such as cactus, Ying-Hai-Zao (Phoenix syloestris) are used in different
neighborhoods.
1
It refers to constructing different leveled boundary block for the purpose of collecting rainfall.
10
Different with the natural water system in Global Villa, Star River is famous of the variable
theme man-made waterbody all over in the estate (Fig.8). In order to match the water theme
as well as reduce water cost, Star River set up its own water plant to recycle the water used in
the whole estate in order to reduce the cost. The residents’ drink water is still from the government while the water for the view and irrigation are from the recycled Pearl River water
by its own water plant. Thus the water cost of the whole estate is relatively lower than the
other estates. We may also notice many ecological designs for the benefit of recycling water.
For example, cobble pavement drain off water design without artificial water leakage proof at
bottom, so it directly attaches with the soil and underground water (Fig. 9).
Fig. 8 Water View in Star River Estate Fig. 9 Water recycling design of Star River
Discussion
By comparison, the plentiful plants design in Riverside Garden is accompany with relatively
high labor input and water consumption. The center lake and the whole irrigation water of
Riverside Garden are lap-top water which means not only a high cost but also a waste of the
natural recourses. Global Villa is successful in its water system planning which combine with
the natural underground water and the rainfall water collection. The labor input intensive is
relatively low; however the plants are not as plentiful as that in Riverside Garden and Star
River. Star River can be viewed as another successful example in solving the water problem
in the residential landscaping. The intentional design to collect and recycle the water makes
the landscape to be more ecological. Large amount of local plants and water-resistant plants
even help to save the water resources.
3.3 Increasing biodiversity and micro eco-environment
Case 1: Riverside Garden
Kang-Yuan Garden is centrally located and was made without artificial water leakage proof at
bottom, so it directly attaches with the soil and underground water. Therefore it is more ecological and cheaper than conventional new gardens. Little fishes and insects of wetland were
detected growing naturally. It indicates that a micro eco-environment is emerging (Fig. 10).
11
(b)
(a)
Fig. 10 Eco-environment of Kang-Yuan Garden
Case 2: Global Villa
The latest Phrase 3 Mountains & Water Garden is called “Forest Castle” because of the following two reasons. One is large amount of plants quantity in this neighborhood. The other is
that because it is located at the highest place of the western part of Global Villa, surrounded
by the mountain and forest as well as encircles the central water body which brings the best
ecological eco-environment.
However, its slogan of “chief ecological estate” in Southern China, lots of the people feel that
the supporting evidence is not enough. The whole inside landscape design didn’t express intentional purpose of the ecological meaning. “Ecology” is based on the whole residential
landscaping of the estate and the good outside surroundings (Table 7).
Table 7 Internet survey of Mountain & Water Garden
Survey item: being the “chief ecological estate” of China, you think the strongest support point is？
Item
Landscape environment in the whole estate
Outside surroundings (ecological forest)
Estate environment plus surroundings
Above points are not obvious
Vote number
82
31
266
231
（source：Global Villa Website http://www.gvhkcn.com/gvhk/research/resResult.jsp）
Case 3: Star River
Langxin neighborhood is characterized with its plentiful riverside-plants types, such as
Zhi-zhu-lan (Hymenocallis speciosa), Zong-zhu (Rhapis humilis), Chun-yu (Philodendron
Selloum), Chui-liu (Salix babylonica), Hua-ye-liang-jiang (Alpinia zerumbet ‘Variegata’),
Gui-bei-zhu (Monstera deliciosa), E-zhang-chai (Schefflera octophylla), Bai-ji-dan-hua
(Plumeria rubra var ‘acutifolia’), Huang-xia-hua (Pachystachys lotea), Hong-ci-tou-lin
(Pandanus veifchii) (Fig. 11 a). The whole water body in Star River is man-made water view.
Although it has a close relationship with the surround plants, no eco-relationship is formed
between them. Thus it is hardly to develop a micro eco-environment in the neighborhood (Fig.
11 b).
12
(a)
(b)
Fig. 11 riverside-plants in Star River
Discussion
Riverside Garden has successful approaches in design Kang-Yuan garden into a more ecological garden example in the real estate development. At the same time, Kang-Yuan garden
is a good example of low budget and high benefit garden in Guangzhou (Table 8). A micro
eco-environment is now forming in Kang-Cheng-Ju neighborhood. In comparison, Global
Villa has more advantages in congenital good surroundings with ecological forest and Lichi
garden. However the inside landscape environment does not match the “ecological” slogan.
Global Villa can achieve more progress if it can improve its inside living environment in the
future with a good surrounding base. Star River is full of water bodies while most of these are
hard leakage proof bottom and separated from the natural ground water. It hasn’t formed an
eco-environment yet. Future housing development may consider about the natural water body
design in the future in order to increase the biodiversity and form a real eco-environment.
Table 8 Construction costs of Kang-Yuan garden (Yuan / m2)
Kang-Yuan garden
500
City gardens on average
1000
Highest garden cost in Tianhe District
3000
3.4 Continuity of the greenery
Case 1: Riverside Garden
The landscape greenery in Riverside Garden is an entirety. The hollow railings are used as the
partition for two neighborhoods instead of wall in order to keep the continuity of the greenery
(Fig. 12 left). The landscape inside the neighborhood also shows a strong linkage between
each other. Take Li-Zi-Lou as an example, it is composed of a hierarchy of courtyards: a central courtyard, small courtyards, interior courtyards, which are interconnected and traffic free
(Fig. 12 right). It can not only provide a wide open space to the residents but also ensure the
continuity of the landscapes.
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Fig. 12 Greenery continuity in Riverside Garden
Case 2: Global Villa
The greenery of Global Villa not only has a good continuity inside the estate but also well
combined with the outside surroundings thus ensure the greenery continuity for the whole
estate. The water system Lago-Di-Como is the key linkage of Global Villa. It provides the
possibility of the variety biodiversity development (Fig. 13).
Fig.13 Site plan of Global Villa
Case 3: Star River
Phrase 1, 2 are separated with Phrase 3 because of the South China expressway and the government public road. In order to keep the continuity of the greenery of these 3 phrases, land14
scape was designed under the bridge which is a public governmental space. The variety
plants not only rich the view under the bridge but also ensure the continuity of the landscape
inside Star River (Fig.14).
Fig. 14 Greenery continuity of Star River
Discussion
In order to keep the continuity of the greenery inside an estate, a clear planning idea should
be formed at the very beginning. These three cases all have achieved some progress in greenery continuity. At the same time, some useful design approaches can also help to achieve this
purpose whatever any problems suddenly emerged.
3.5 Enhance the relationship between people and greenery
Riverside Garden has won numerous national and provincial prizes for her outstanding social
activity and organization. In this aspect, Riverside Garden is chose as the only case to analyze
the relationship between people and greenery. The resolution of United Nations Economic
and Social Council states that participation requires the voluntary and democratic involvement of people in the following three aspects (Midgley et al., 1986) and this paper will try to
compare the current approaches in Riverside Garden with them.
Contributing to the development effort is to see if the residents in the community contribute
together with the rest of the community in the implementation of decisions. Though the interview to the estate developer, it is known that the idea of community participation has been set
up from the very beginning. For example, for educational purposes, many trees are labeled
with description boards providing botanical knowledge. Any new house owner is provided a
chance to plant a tree inside the estate. The tree is labeled with the name of his or her child.
(Fig.16) This activity aims to give the resident a chance to contribute to the whole development effort. At the same time, the management company to plant trees will organize all the
residents in the residential area in every Arbor Day. People beautify their own living envi15
ronment and enjoy their own achievements and benefits. The community spirits is thus
strengthened.
(a)
(b)
Fig. 16.Tree planter names are labeled together with botanical data.
Through the questionnaire to the residents, it is also found that 38% of the visited people say
that they have never taken part in any activities. 75% residents said that they are interested in
taking part in the activities but the main reason that why they haven’t done it is because they
don’t got the chance. Therefore contributing to the development effort needs the wise leadership.
Sharing equitably in the benefits derived there from is to evaluate that if the residents in the
community can derive equitable benefits from the programs initiated by the community
leader. Residents are the masters of the community and they can be a designer to design and
enjoy their own landscape environment; they should have the chance to give suggestions on
how to transform the environment based on personal need or desire and therefore to share the
benefits they arised for themselves. Riverside Garden is short of the consideration of how to
ensure the residents to share the benefits they ought to have.
Decision-making in respect of setting goals, formulating policies and planning and implementing economic and social development programs is to see if the poorest groups in the
community have an effective role in choosing social development programs. In Riverside
Garden, residents can collectively monitor and supervise management work including landscape maintenance. The Owners’ Committee was found 1997 through an open process of
consultation, nomination, and a poll, in which about 20% residents (5000 households) joint
the polling. 13 members were elected and worked on voluntary base except one secretary
(Table 9).
Table 9 Ownership Committee structure
Position
Number
1 person
1 person
4 persons
4 persons
4 persons
Director
Associate director
Property maintenance
Environment
Community culture
16
In fact, the management company is employed and supervised by the owners’ committee. The
owners’ committee has also provided a chance for the residents to take part in the decision-making or express their idea partly. However the represents of residents in the owners’
committee is still a minor part of the residents entirety and people can hardly get enough sovereignty and certain autonomy.
Discussion
Community participation in the residential area should be populated from the basic common
individuals - the residents, to the upper lead stratum- the developer and the designers. Riverside Garden has applied some approaches to develop good community participation but actually this kind of participation is not real community participation. The policy maker is the
management company and the developer. Residents can hardly take part in. The reason lies in
the inherent problem of people’s consciousness. Promoting community participation needs to
raise the level of social and political consciousness of local people. Many authorities have
pointed out that community participation can be effectively initiated through the creation of
specific projects that command popular support. For example, asking for suggestions at the
beginning of a design process, and also ask for post-occupancy evaluation from the community residents.
4. Conclusion
With the high speed urban development, people are getting further away from the nature.
Green home becomes a dream of the modern society. Through the survey to the citizens, it is
discovered that almost 100% people prefer to own more greenery in their living environment.
An ecological, healthy surrounding may make people feel pleasant.
From the ecological point of view, residential landscape has several eco-functions such as
adjust the micro-climate and release oxygen in the living environment. However, environmental problem now becomes more and more obvious in China because of the large-scaled
housing development. The original natural topography and vegetation are neglected and destroyed during the human construction thus causes many ecological problems. Human should
face the consequences they caused by themselves and try to solve the problems. An affordable and comfortable housing environment in the 21st century should build up the harmony
between human and nature.
Ecological landscape becomes a complex concept when applying the sustainable principles
into the housing environment. Firstly, sustainability concerns about the energy input, labor
input and waster output while not only the greenery areas. The natural vegetation requires
low input while develops huge eco-benefits. Therefore the main idea of ecological landscape
is to imbue natural eco-models into the man-made residential landscape in order to reduce the
energy consumption as well as human labor input.
Secondly, the purpose of ecological landscape is to protect the local species and at the same
time increase biodiversity. It cares about the quality of the landscape while not only the quantity. Residential landscape may become the best way to compensate the natural destruction
during the large scaled housing development.
Thirdly, residential landscape is different from the urban public landscape because it has a
close relationship with the local residents’ daily life. Therefore residential landscape requires
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different design approaches to strengthen the interaction between residents and landscape and
this can be realized in residents’ participation. Residential landscape becomes a media of the
residents’ communication and conversely contributes to a harmonic neighborhood relationship.
In conclusion, the housing estates in Guangzhou now have achieved some progress in implementing ecological practices in their residential landscape planning. However, these kinds
of practices have not been upgrade to a theory level. The origin of the problem lies in the
consciousness of the whole society and the design process. Towards a more sustainable
housing environment, ecological concept should be studied thoroughly from the very beginning of the development and design process.
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