In-between boundary: reshaping the boundary space to realize the hierarchical openness of gated campus

Abstract

In consideration of the management system in China, the traditional gated campuses are not likely to be completely open. The "closure" and "openness" of the campus are dialectical. Inside and outside the boundary spaces are the private campus areas and the public urban areas. In order to solve this contradiction, this thesis discusses how to balance the privacy of campus buildings and the publicness of urban environment by reshaping the boundary space. Based on the research of related theories and cases of “Open Campus” and “Boundary Space”, this thesis proposes two hypotheses: "Hierarchical campus" and "In-between boundary". To achieve "Hierarchical openness", it is necessary to control the permeability of boundary space. Different level of openness will correspond to different types of "In-between boundary". Then, from the urban scale and architectural scale, the strategies are proposed. The urban-level strategy is to transform the campus "From big compound to small block ", which includes two steps: "Downsizing the campus" and "Sharing the roads". The architecture-level strategy is to transform the boundary "From unidirectional line to bidirectional strip", which also includes two steps: "Shaping the boundary" and "Functionalizing the boundary". The balance adjustment mechanism of campus openness is established through the boundary space, so that the campus can enjoy both the convenience of "openness" and the safety of "closure". Tongji University is taken as the specific research object to test the feasibility of the hypotheses and strategies. The relationship between publicness and privacy is dialectical, which forms the characteristics of the boundary space. By reshaping the boundary space, we can control the balance between publicness and privacy, so as to realize the hierarchical openness of the campus and finally realize the integration of the gated campus and the city.