Urban Renewal Design Strategies for the Julong Bay Waterfront Industrial Heritage Zone

As urban development enters a phase dominated by “inventory renewal”, the renewal of waterfront industrial heritage zones—key nodes where history intersects with contemporary urban life—has become an increasingly pressing issue. The Julong Bay area in Guangzhou, a representative cluster of waterfront warehouse-type industrial heritage, faces multiple challenges, including outdated spatial functions, lack of publicness, diminished historical value, and excessive commercialization. This study focuses on the application of the “sharing paradigm” in urban regeneration, exploring how to reconstruct the urban living interface and cultural landscape of such areas through multi-party co-creation, functional integration, and spatial openness. The thesis begins with a systematic theoretical review of key concepts such as the sharing city, industrial heritage conservation, and adaptive reuse, establishing “shared renewal” as the core standpoint and logical framework of the research. Drawing on field investigations and spatial syntax analysis of the Julong Bay and Pearl River Back Channel areas, the study identifies structural shortcomings in spatial permeability, temporal functional adaptability, and public engagement. In response, it proposes a “five-dimensional sharing evaluation” framework to provide qualitative support for the design strategies. On this basis, the research develops a multi-scalar and multi-actor strategy system, structured around five spatial levels: zone, place, corridor, boundary, and node. Through design intervention in typical plots of the Julong Bay area, the study demonstrates a spatial transformation model centered on shared renewal, emphasizing the co-construction of spatial adaptability and the embedding of everyday public life. This approach addresses the dual demand in industrial heritage renewal—namely, the physical restructuring of space and the reintegration of human presence. The research outcomes offer a practical design reference and governance framework for similar urban waterfront industrial heritage zones, aiming to achieve a mutually beneficial integration of heritage conservation and urban development.