The Megablock: Beijing under one roof

In China today, the default solution for accommodating rapid urban growth is large-scale superblock development, a carryover from the Soviet-influenced communist-era planning. With site areas that can exceed 40 hectares, and populations reaching over 100,000, these autonomous blocks, often surrounded by walls, have been radically transforming cities in China. Operating between the scales of architecture and the city, they act as spatial instruments with social, cultural, environmental, and economic implications. The majority are designed in isolation as autonomous enclaves enclosed by walls and consisting of a collection of repetitive structures that encourage and reinforce an inward-focused lifestyle. Access is controlled, with minimal connectivity to adjacent sites and the general urban context. Public accessibility is either discouraged or outright prohibited. The superblock is essentially a city within a city, with its own internal organization and infrastructure that take no part in an overall social or spatial narrative. As a result, vast areas in Chinese cities have been transformed into territories of disconnected urban fragments. This chapter elaborates how a sustainable, forward-looking, self-contained urban microcosm is contained within a single enclosure-the Beijing megablock.