How did the new immigrants in Yanjiao, the most fashionable street in Beijing, become like this?

From Meishi Street in the east to Yanshou Street in the west, Yangmeizhu Xie Jie, with a total length of only 496 meters, is somewhat special among the numerous hutongs in Dashilan.

Compared with the adjacent bustling Dashilan West Street, Yangmeizhu Xie Jie is much quieter. It has both the popularity of the aborigines and the charm of the old hutong. In recent years, various design, creative shops and design institutions that have settled in this hutong are slowly changing the ecology of this hutong. Different from the drastic commercial transformation of Qianmen Street, it is like trying to activate and update the already backward ecological environment with the aborigines.

From the thirty-second year of Jiajing (1553) to the 1930s, Dashilan was synonymous with a prosperous business center, where many bookstores, clubs and shops gathered. This street was given by Emperor Qianlong as the residence of Liang, a senior minister of the Ministry of Housing and a university student of Dongge. Qingyunge, a high-grade comprehensive commercial and entertainment venue in Beijing in the late Qing Dynasty and the early Republic of China, is also here. Later, this hutong, which brought together seven publishing houses and bookstores, including World Bookstore, Zhongzheng Bookstore and Guanghua Bookstore, became the most important publishing commercial street in Beijing.

However, in today's hutong with deteriorating landscape, when more people who don't know this place read the words "Da" (Zha) and "Lan" bluntly, we realized that the Dashilan, which once gathered dignitaries, ordinary people and cultural officials from all walks of life in Beijing, is really gone.

Two years ago, Yangmeizhu Xie Jie became the earliest street in Dashilan area, with 529 households out of 1, and the remaining 1, 7 1 households scattered in various miscellaneous houses. Xicheng District began to try to merge scattered households into a courtyard, and part of the vacated courtyard was used for the construction of public toilets and convenient vegetable markets, while the other part was reserved for the development of cultural and creative industries. Leading this renewal plan is Beijing Dashilan Investment Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of Xicheng District, Beijing. The Dashilan Cross-border Center established by Dashilan is dedicated to uniting various cross-border forces and exploring the organic renewal model of Dashilan historical and cultural blocks.

The so-called vacant decoration, the most important thing is to change rather than just retreat. Last year, we introduced many domestic and foreign architects' schemes for the reconstruction of Qianmen East District. Among them, the "empty/particle" scheme made by Japanese architect Kengo Kuma adopts a way similar to traditional Chinese medicine that does not destroy the existing texture, that is, looking for empty spaces and corners in hutongs, planting some small spaces, and giving full play to the functions of different communities.

If you are interested in opening the website of Dashilan renewal project, it may make people who have never been to Dashilan block have the impulse to find out.

In the process of old city reconstruction, it is not difficult to find that the quality of life of historical buildings and hutong blocks is in jeopardy, and there is a lack of modern infrastructure and available public space. These public problems cannot be solved by simple reconstruction. The demolition and construction of Qianmen Street is a typical case, which destroyed the original texture of the block and left a seemingly lively corner. Another case is Nanluoguxiang. The whole street is full of shops with serious homogenization. As a result, foreign tourists can't get in when they come. 20 1 1 launched the "dashilan renewal plan", trying to avoid recurrence with the power of design.

In 20 13, Dashilan Cross-border Center launched a pilot project named "Dashilan Leader" in conjunction with Beijing Design Week, which is not only a long-term project of Dashilan renewal plan, but also an important part of Dashilan's new street view design tour in Beijing Design Week. Architects, designers and artists all came here, and they chose to cooperate with local residents to activate the community.

During the Beijing Design Week last year, we reported the "Inner Box Courtyard" project made by the design team from Beijing-People's Architecture Office. In fact, a prefabricated modular system was put into the old quadrangle, which not only preserved the structural integrity of the original building, but also provided residents with an energy-saving and efficient living environment needed by modern urban life.

At first, no matter how the designer explained the rationality of the project, the neighbors thought it would not be a good thing. As Liang Ying, a staff member of Dashilan Cross-border Center, said, "It's useless for residents here to tell them anything before they see the results, and they thought we would cheat them." But seeing the inner box courtyard from design to completion, the old people living next door saw and touched the real thing, and then turned to discuss with these designers to help their home transform.

On the day I visited the Dashilan Cross-border Center, I happened to meet the team of many buildings in the Inner Box Courtyard built at No.72 Yangmeizhu, Xie Jie. Since the Inner Box Academy was built, not only the residents in the surrounding streets and lanes, but also many foreigners and people in the design field have come to visit.