Sustainable Disorder: The Hybrid Logic of “Sense of Place” Construction in Tourist Spaces—A Case Study of Harbin Morning Market

Abstract

Taking Harbin morning market as a case study, this study explores sustainable production schemes for generating sense of place in urban spaces amid the trend of modernization. Employing grounded theory, it develops an analytical model consisting of three components: space, humans, and materials. The findings reveal that place identity emerges from functional redundancy and self-organizing spatial layouts, where the hybrid logic of spatial design, the non-programmed interactions of human actors, and the material networks together enable tourists to transform from spectators into embodied participants. Theoretically, this study proposes a hybrid logic and challenges high modernism. It emphasizes that fully mobilizing the spontaneous vitality of every actor in the space is more effective than unilaterally improving rules and functions, offering a sustainable path for nurturing localized cultural ecosystems against homogenization.