Research on the Informal Renovation of Public Space Interfaces in Guangzhou’s Historic Urban Areas from the Perspective of Modernology: Taking the Middle Section of Yudai Mout as an Example

In recent years, with the acceleration of urbanization, the renewal of Guangzhou's historic urban areas faces many challenges of development. The contradiction between traditional urban planning and the needs of modern development has become increasingly prominent, especially at the intersection of historical and cultural protection and urban renewal. How to maintain the characteristics of historic urban areas and the convenience of users' lives while improving the functionality and aesthetics of public spaces has become an urgent problem to be solved. Inspired by Kon Wajiro’s Modernology, this research takes the informal renovation in the middle section of Yudai Mout as the research objects of public interfaces renovation, trying to grasp the clues of users' lives, and with the analysis method of "seeing the big from the small", discover the spatial practice and place identity behind the users' life, so as to explore the path and method of informal renovation of public space interfaces in Guangzhou's historic urban areas. This research first summarizes the connotation and significance of Modernology as a research method by studying its development and evolution and comparing it with other research methods. Secondly, it summarizes the development of theoretical research on historic urban areas and informal phenomenon domestic and international, and summarizes its practical experience; and then combines Modernology to demonstrate its significance for the research of informal renovation of historic urban areas. Based on the above, this research proposes a new research step of "overview analysis, objects record, scenes analysis, users interview, inductive conclusions". This research takes the middle section of Yudai Mout as the research scope, through overview analysis, object records and scene analysis, combined with interviews to discover the folk wisdom of users and social management issues. It believes that the optimization of users' informal renovation can not only improve the efficiency of public space use, but also enhance users' cultural identity of the place and bring positive impacts to the public space interfaces. Secondly, with the purpose of historic urban renovation, relevant domestic and international practice cases are analyzed, and the optimization strategies applicable to the public space interfaces are summarized. Then, starting from the strategies, combined with the previous analysis, the optimization guidelines for the public space interfaces are proposed from four aspects: building optimization, road optimization, landscape optimization and urban management, and the corresponding optimization designs are proposed, emphasizing the importance of social and cultural factors and local characteristics in the renovation. Finally, this research summarizes the research and design role of Modernology and design in the renovation of historic urban areas, hoping to provide the Modernology theoretical support and practical guidance for the renovation of public space interfaces in Guangzhou and other historic urban areas.