Project update by Tucker Bryant, Zirai Huang, Mercedes Peterson, Yuxiao Pu

Fantastic Fieldwork in Fugoli + Fenghuiyuan 一级棒的富国里和丰汇园实地调研

Today we dove feet first into the fieldwork aspect of our Land Use Project; quite literally managed to land inside a taxi right off campus, hustling inside before we even gave the driver a chance to blink. Tucker, Yuxiao, Ray and I decided to try out a couple different methods of transportation other than our usual subway rides; this had the twofold purpose of trying to master the Beijing traffic situation as well as experiencing the slightly strange adventure that cabbing in Beijing entails.

今天，首先我们从土地利用项目的实地调研方面入手。毫不夸张地说我们一出学校就钻进了一辆出租车里，甚至没给司机眨眼的机会。我和塔克，欲晓，自睿决定尝试一些不同的交通工具，而不是我们通常使用的地铁。这样做有两重面目的：试图掌握北京的交通状况和体验在北京乘出租车这稍微特别点儿的历险。

 

We arrived at Fugoli first, a type II residential neighborhood tucked into a nest of streets to the side of one of Beijing’s main avenues. We split up into pairs, with Ray and Tucker investigating the south side of the neighborhood and Yuxiao and myself researching the north. We drew a 500 meter radius around a central structure and surveyed the land use of the area. We travelled to Fenghuiyuan by bus a couple hours later, our second research site and one that was less than 10 minutes away from the first. We switched partners and proceeded to survey the area (a type III residential one) in the same way. We found that despite the fact that the two neighborhoods were in the vicinity of each other, there was a world of difference between the two. Whilst the formal analysis and processing of our data is the next step in our project and will therefore be done in the near future, we did observe a number of trends between the two areas that are a source of glaring contrast. Some of these include differences in the buildings themselves (height & width as well as intended use), differences in the types of services found in the area (repair versus spa services), and lastly, differences in the amenities such as parking and green areas available to the residents of the area.

我们首先到达富国里小区——一个蜷缩在北京主干道旁街道中的第二类居民住宅区。我们分成了两对，自睿和塔克调查街坊南侧，我和欲晓研究北面。围绕中心，我们画了一个半径500米的圆，并调查该区域的土地利用情况。两三个小时后我们乘公交车去了丰汇园——我们的第二个调研地点，距第一个不到十分钟路程。我们交换了搭档，并继续用同样的方法调查这一区域（一个第三类居民住宅区）。我们发现，尽管他们是两个相邻的街坊，他们之间有非常多的不同。我们项目的下一步是形式分析和数据处理，也就是说这会在不久的将来完成，除此之外，我们特别观察到这两个区域中存在大量明显的反差走势。他们包括建筑的不同（高度和宽度，以及使用意图），发现区域间服务种类的不同（修理铺对水疗吧），然后最后，设施的不同，比如：该区域居民可用的停车场和绿地。

 

We encountered a couple challenges whilst we did our research, the main one being that of categorization. Essentially, it was very difficult to categorize certain types of services or commerce, at times because they fell under the umbrella term “informal commerce”, and at times because of the myriad of differences between services offered. Nevertheless, we found that the information we were able to collect was very helpful in the answering of some of our questions, as well as in the creation of new questions that will take our research in different directions. With this information, we can now start to answer the question on what kinds of services are available to the different demographics found in each of the areas researched; it helps to draw comparisons between these selfsame areas and what kind of land use has evolved around them; helps answer and raise questions on transportation behavior, as well as raises questions around price equity.

在调研过程中，我们遇到了几个难题，最主要的一个是分类。本质上，对某些类型的服务或是商务进行分类是非常困难的，有时因为他们归入上位词“非正式商务”下，有时由于所提供服务间有很大的不同。然而，我们发现我们能收集到的信息对于回答我们的部分问题是很有帮助的，并且新问题的产生会将我们的研究引向不同的方向。有了这些信息，我们现在能开始解答“对于各研究区域不同的人口成分，什么样的服务是有效的”这个问题，这些信息有助于描绘这些完全相同的区域间的比较，以及他们周围什么样的土地利用有所进化，它还有助于提出并回答交通行为的问题，以及提出价格平衡相关问题。