从古至今人们一直在寻求理想的城市空间。北宋的开封，里坊制已不复存在，市肆商业不再限定在特定的市内，而是分布全城，与居住街坊混杂，沿街开店，形成熙熙攘攘的商业街。《清明上河图》描绘了当时高度成熟的手工业城市的繁华风貌——居住、衙署、市肆、码头和寺庙在空间上高度融合，尺幅之间即表达出极富烟火气息的城市社区“生活圈”；同时，一切城市繁华图景皆流转于汴河两岸的丰茂树木与城郊区域之间，园林与风景自然地成为市民活动的重要载体。由《东京梦华录》记载清明游春盛况——“士庶阗塞诸门……四野皆市，往往就芳树之下，或园囿之间，罗列杯盘，互相劝酬。都市之歌儿舞女，遍满园亭，抵暮而归”，可见城市园林与郊野风景区域即是社区商业买卖、社交与文化游赏活动中不可忽视的空间场所。此类由宜人的城市尺度、开敞的郊野空间基底混合城市功能所构成的社区生活场景延续了千余年。

人类社会每一次重大的技术变革，城市的居住环境模式不断经历颠覆和再创造。第一次工业技术革命实现了农业经济主导的手工业型城市迈向工业化城市的进程，沿着郊区蔓延的工厂林立，亿万人口从繁重的农业耕作中解放并涌入城市，社区生活场景由充满人文气息、具有田园郊野风光的开敞空间转变为狭窄局促的城市空间。

随着提升居住环境、回归自然的呼声日益高涨，18世纪末—19世纪初，约翰·纳什（John Nash）、汉弗莱·莱普顿（Humphrey Repton）为代表的建筑师和风景园林师，尝试通过风景园林的规划手法改善城乡居住环境，在工业化的语境下对社区环境的绿色空间规划进行探索。在这类“田园城郊”的规划中，社区的绿色开放空间由住宅周边的小花园和中心绿地构成，两侧设置优美的林荫街道将商店、服务区和运输区间进行了有效的连通，生活住宅和公共设施被绿地紧密联系成一个整体，形成了依托绿色空间的社区生活圈雏形。伦敦贝德福德公园（Bedford Park）作为最有代表性的案例，被当时的规划者称赞为“世界上最健康的地方”。这种以绿色空间带动的社区景观规划方式被不断模仿和复制，对欧美国家的社区规划产生了长远影响。奥姆斯特德延续田园城郊的规划手法，营造风景与居住融合的城市社区环境，应对美国农业向工业转变中产生的居住环境问题。对于河谷地带的里弗赛德（Riverside）片区，他将河流以及两侧的土地规划为公园，作为最大的一处娱乐性公共绿地，并且利用步行道将公园和各个社区的绿地连接为一个整体，形成了沿河谷的一条绿带。这一类社区绿色空间规划的早期模式，帮助当时的居民克服了工业发展下城镇生活的弊端，为解决住宅困难和城市发展的难题奠定强有力的基础，同时也为构建一种平衡的、公正的居住环境开辟了道路。

第二次工业技术革命带来不可逆转的城市扩张浪潮，更多的人口进入城市进行更高效率的合作生产，伴随《雅典宪章》《马丘比丘宪章》的实施、日渐改进的规划方法使社区的宜居品质有了质的改变；然而现代主义城市规划机械的分区模式，导致功能空间及公共资源布局失衡，城市规模越大，居民快捷公平地利用城市资源越难。亚洲的日本率先在规划中应用“地方生活圈”和“定住圈”的概念，提出以人的活动需求为核心，针对居民各项日常生活需要、规划一日生活所需的空间规划单元，旨在缩小地区、城乡之间的环境建设水平差距，谋求不同尺度空间公共资源的合理分布，“社区生活圈”的概念应运而生。中国在2018年《城市居住区规划设计标准》中，将15分钟、10分钟、5分钟生活圈居住区和居住街坊作为居住空间组织的核心理念，取代了沿用多年的居住区、小区和组团概念，标志着从“见物不见人”到“以人为本”的规划思路转变，至今多个城市已持续展开社区生活圈的规划实践。

绿色空间作为社区生活圈中最重要的公共资源之一，与人的活动具有密切的关系，对于塑造人居环境有机秩序具有相当重要的作用。在当下中国城市空间存量提质的形势下，社区公共利益和改善民生的诉求更加凸显，推动社区生活圈的绿色空间规划满足公平性、精细化配置的需求，以实现更大尺度下对绿地空间规划的管控。在深化“以人为本”理念下，以公众的文化、情感、精神和实际需求作为基本出发点，“量体裁衣”打造激发居民地方归属感和生活获得感的绿色空间，为创建社区邻里和睦氛围、营建社区家园感提供契机，创造真正健康、公正、和谐的社区生活圈，实现人们长久以来工作创造与幸福生活平衡的理想。

Community Life Circle and Green Space

Since ancient times, people have always been seeking an ideal urban space.In Kaifeng of the Northern Song Dynasty, neighborhood system was no longer executed. Shops and businesses in downtown streets were no longer constrained in a specific urban area but distributed all over the city. In this circumstance,a bustling business street was formed together by mixed residential neighbors and shops opened along the street. TheRiverside Scene at Qingming Festivaldepicts the flourishing scene of Kaifeng which had had highly mature handicraft industry at that time, shows the highly integrated residence, government office,shops, wharf and temples in space, and demonstrates a colorful “community life circle”. At the same time, all prosperous scenes in the city are presented between the luxuriant trees along Bian River and the suburb area. Gardens and landscapes naturally become the key carriers of citizen activities. As recorded in theRecords of the Dreamlike Splendors of the Eastern Capital, “Gentries and civilians are crowded at the entrances … shops are here and there. People often have meals or communicate with each other under trees or in gardens. Singers and dancers gather in gardens and pavilions and return until sunset”. This shows that gardens and suburb landscape areas are considerable spaces for conducting community commercial transaction, social activity, cultural visit and sightseeing activity. This living scene in community constituted by pleasant urban scale, open suburb space and complex urban functions has lasted for more than a thousand years.

Every time the human society experienced significant technological change,the living environment in urban area would undergo constant subversion and recreation. The first industrial revolution realized the transform from handicraft industrial city dominated by agricultural economy to industrialized city. In this process, many factories were distributed in suburb area. Billions of people were liberated from the heavy agricultural cultivation work and poured into urban area. In response, the living scene in community was transformed from open space with countryside suburb scenery and full of humanity into narrow and confined urban space.

From the end of the 18th century to the beginning of the 19th century,with the increasingly high appeal for improving the living environment and returning to nature, architects and landscape architects represented by John Nash and Humphrey Repton tried to take the planning method of landscape architect to improve the urban and rural living environment and explored to make plan for green spaces in community in the context of industrialization.In this “suburban village” plan, green open space in community is composed of small gardens and central green space around residence. Two sides of community were provided with beautiful tree-lined street which got shops,service areas and transportation areas effectively connected. Residence and public utilities were closely interlinked by green space, forming a prototype of community life circle based on green space. Most representatively, London Bedford Park was praised as “the healthiest place in the world” by planners at the time. Such method of landscape planning for community driven by green space was imitated and copied continuously and posed long-term impact on community planning in European and American countries. Olmsted continued the suburban village planning method and created an urban community environment where landscape and residence were integrated to cope with the living environment problems caused by the transition from agricultural to industrial development in America. In the Riverside area located in river valley region, the river and the land on both sides of it were planned as park, one of the largest public green spaces for entertainment. The park and the land in each community were connected together by walkway to form a green belt along the river valley. This early mode of planning for green space in community helped residents at that time overcoming the shortcomings of urban life under industrial development and laid a firm foundation for overcoming the difficulties in providing residence and urban development. Meanwhile, this mode also opened a new way for constructing a balanced living environment with equity.

The second industrial revolution raised an irreversible wave of urban expansion. Followed by, more and more people entered urban area and contributed to more efficient cooperative production. With the execution of theAthens CharterandThe Charter of Machu Picchu, the living quality of community had been substantially changed in the increasingly improved planning method. However, the inflexible zoning mode of modernist urban planning led to an imbalance in the layout of functional spaces and public resources. Consequently, the larger the urban scale is, the more difficult it is for residents to get quick and equitable access to urban resources. In Asia, Japan initiatively applied the concepts of “local community life circle” and “fixed residence circle” in urban planning and proposed a space orienting to residents’activity demand and daily living needs, aiming to shorten the gap between the environmental construction levels among regions, and between urban and rural areas, seeking rational distribution of public resources in spaces of different scales. Accordingly, the concept of “community life circle” emerged.In theStandard for Urban Residential Area Planning and Design (2018)of China, 15-minute, 10-minute and 5-minute pedestrian-scale community and neighborhood block are regarded as the core concepts of residential spatial organization and substitute the residence zone, housing estate and cluster that have been used for many years, which marks the change from “object-oriented”to humanity-oriented planning ideas. Up to now, the planning practice of community life circle has already been continuously conducted in many cities.

As one of the most important public resources in community life circle,green space is closely correlated to human activities and plays a vital role in shaping the organic order of the living environment. At present, the quality of urban space in China has been gradually improved. In this context, the appeal for pursuing public interest and improving people’s livelihood in community becomes more prominent. To solve this problem, it is necessary to promote the green space planning for community life circle to meet the demand for refined and equitable allocation and control the green space planning in larger scale. In the principle of deepening the “humanity-oriented” concept, a truly healthy,equitable and harmonious community life circle can be created derive from the public’s cultural, emotional, spiritual and actual demands, by stimulating residents’senses of belonging to the local place and acquisition from life based on actual situation and providing an opportunity for creating harmonious neighborhood atmosphere and homeland flavor in community, so as to realize people’s longterm dream of maintaining a balance between working and joyful life.

Editor-in-Chief: Professor ZHENG Xi

March 28th, 2021