Beijing's New Urban Countryside–Designing with Complexity and Strategic Landscape Planning

One of the key challenges facing sustainable urban and landscape design is the land-use management of the rural-urban fringe, a dynamic area where a range of urban and rural uses collide. By examining the present situation of one of the world's most dynamic fringes, the planned second green belt of Beijing, it becomes clear that rapid land-use change processes are closely connected to the adaptive and inventive connections between people and the land. Thus a new management system leading to sustainable development and design of the green belt can only be achieved by designing new ways of interaction between the different actors and the land. During a Sino-German workshop seeking deeper understanding of land-use patterns and processes, different scenarios for the future development of Beijing's urban countryside were developed and discussed.