Metropolitan Design Center 2006 Undergraduate Travel Fellowship : Richard Crockett

Richard Crockett, Undergraduate, College of Design, 2006 Metropolitan Design Center Undergraduate Travel Fellowship Recipient.

Urban Watercourses in China

For eight weeks, College of Design Undergraduate Richard Crockett was granted the opportunity to travel through China to study watercourse development. He traveled to seven cities ranging in size from 3 million to 17 million people. The journey began in Shanghai, the largest urban center in China, where the very large, industrial Huangpu River runs through a dense quickly changing core. Then, the three ancient cities of Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Yangzhou were visited in relative proximity to Shanghai. These cities are important historically because of their position on the Grand Canal, a man made watercourse two millennia old that connects north and south China. Then Crockett started upstream on the Yangtze River, visiting two large industrial cities in Central China, Wuhan and Chongqing. Finally, the journey was concluded with a stop on the Yellow River in the northwest of the country at the geographically isolated city of Lanzhou. The cities visited not only presented Crockett with a diverse geographic range but also great diversity in terms of the scale and type of watercourse present.

The cities and their accompanying watercourses studied were broken up into two categories based on historically and economic importance. The modern cities of Shanghai, Wuhan, Chongqing, and Lanzhou whose watercourses are natural but highly modified for modern industrial development are considered watercourses that are building Modern China. The ancient cities of Hangzhou, Suzhou, and Yangzhou adjacent to the Grand Canal whose watercourses are artificial and smaller are considered watercourses that built Ancient China.

Crockett used photographs (over 7000 were taken), sketches, and narrative record to document the journey and analyze Urban Design and Planning issues relevant to the watercourses. Along with an exhibit placed in the CDES Library, a public presentation was given in early Spring Semester 2007. Slides from the presentation can be downloaded below.

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