Shenzhen marketplace

The Shenzhen marketplace in 华侨城 (foreign Chinese city) is located in the middle of a well planned industrial neighborhood built in the 1980s. But for the new developments nearby, going to the market in a dangerous daily task. I tailed an elderly leaving the marketplace (a majority of morning shoppers are elderly) for about 15 minutes before she got to the gates of her luxury highrise.

Traditionally, the Chinese marketplace has been the soul of the neighborhood; it was where people come together to purchase fresh produce and meats, and share a bit of each others lives. They were usually complimented by small eateries and other shops that sell domestic wares. However, current city living demands business models of a different scale: markets become supermarkets and mom and pop stores give away to larger warehouse stores. While most are still pedestrian friendly, these points of transaction are no longer about daily living but about efficiency and cost. (Unfortunately, new developments like this one in Shenzhen often do not have adequate access to domestic goods and services, and should be amended)

fringe apartments

On my way to Shenzhen, I noticed that along the fringes of large urban centers there are some patches of newly transformed residential villages. The rise of this apartment typology here is due to 1) the rising wealth amongst the rural dwellers; 2) the increasing demand for suburban housing; and 3) the continuing industrialization of large scaled farming.
These 3-4 story apartment styled housing are situated on what used to be railroad-side strip farmland. Noise and vibration aside, they are significant improvements upon previous rural structures that often lack water/sewage and electricity. In comparison to the skyscraper apartments, these tightly packed

While there are many different decorations and styles of ornament used on these apartments, for the most part, they share a very rigid set of components: There is the stairs core that provides access and division to the units with a sharp point to the skies; the balconies that open to the south for light in the winter and sun protection in the summer; the load bearing construction method that limits (or enables) different spatial compositions (the ability for developers to sell by #bedroom/#bath); the tightly packed (dare I say urban) condition of these developments; and a one story wall that encloses a tight front yard just before the narrow streets.