A Novel Planning of Vest-Pocket Park in Historic Urban Area in Metropolis: A Case Study of Beijing

It is difficult to build new parks in historic urban area in metropolis because of its complex properties: multifunction, super-high density of population and historic buildings, and conflicts between conservation and utilization of historic heritages. This study focused on exploring a novel planning method of vest-pocket parks in historic urban area in metropolis in order to solve the dilemma. The case study was conducted in the Shichahai area, Beijing, China. The information of the study area, such as existing parks, population, and historic conservative elements, was developed into GIS database which became the basis of further suitability evaluation. Each factor database layer was given a weight in the evaluation concerning their influencing degree to the final planning scheme. The research results have shown that a hierarchical vest-pocket park system with proper linkages between parks can effectively increase quantity of parks and can also function as a whole to meet the requirements of different groups of people in metropolis.