To guarantee its efficiency, the masterplan must have the rudimentary simplicity of moral precepts. It is divided into five parts:

 

1. A plan of the city, defining the size and form of its urban quarters and parks, the network of major avenues and boulevards.

 

2. A plan of each quarter, defining the network of streets, squares and blocks.

 

3. The form of individual plots on each urban block: number, shape, and function of floors that can be built by plot.

 

4. The architectural code describing materials, technical configurations, proportions for external building elements (walls, roofs, windows, doors, porticoes and porches, garden walls, chimneys) and all built elements that are visible from public spaces.

 

5. A code for public spaces, defining the materials, configurations, techniques and designs for paving, street furniture, signage, lighting and planting.

 

The aim of the codes is to improve the quality of normal, regular and inevitable building, to create a "conventional" architecture of quality and encourage the routine realisation of utilitarian buildings by way of long-established traditional building types, to reserve architectural expression and artistic rhetoric for the construction of public buildings and the embellishment of public spaces.

 

Thus, the masterplan has to ensure not only the harmonising of often divergent interests but also the expression of the natural differences between private and public architecture. It is from this dialectic that the profound character of places one day worthy of the title 'historic centre' will spring."

 

 

Leon Krier

 

"Choice or Fate"

 

 

 However the presented  masterplan is based on the exploration of Chinese historical and social settlement patterns: 

 

It offers a viable alternative to current and conventional development practices based on international models discarding local traditions and cultural values articulated in the built environment.

 

The traditional compound system, as established by the Chinese cultural heritage, is the kernel of this plan's philosophy.

 

 The proposal is not specifically and exclusively arguing for traditional buildings:

 

  It envisions, - a modern city, and, -  modern construction methods, as well as, -  living expectations and contemporary comfort - ,  to be layered with traditional patterns:

Patterns transmitted from over thousands of years of China's history of the built environment.

 

A traditional grid is the base for the layering of these historic patterns which will also support the design of lots, blocks, super blocks and neighborhood structures.

 

The implied master plan architecture takes into account traditions of the place and acknowledges local character and authenticity.

 

 

Oscar Machado 

 

Doug Kelbaugh