A study of space syntax and sustainable design in Chinese vocational education parks: Three case studies

Abstract

Currently, China has 1334 vocational colleges. This accounts for 62.7% of all colleges and universities in China. A large portion of vocational colleges is represented by vocational education parks. In China, vocational education park refers to a zone that includes multiple vocational educational institutions and their corresponding science parks combined to form a set of teaching, training, research, production, and social services located in one area. Their development is closely tied to city development planning. Because China’s vocational education system developed relatively late, there is little past experience with building vocational education parks. As a result, vocational education parks are introspective and selfenclosed with fragmented layouts, dispersed resources, insufficient facilities, and incomplete systems. This phenomenon is becoming increasingly serious. This article is based on research on public space layout expansion for Chinese vocational education parks using urban intensification strategies. The intent is to look at strategies for integrating educational resources, leveraging economies of agglomeration, and continuing development in a compact space by building shared facilities, improving the campus land-use ratio, curbing energy consumption and environmental pollution, containing campus sprawl, and promoting vocational education parks to develop in a healthy, orderly, and sustainable way. This study applies composition analysis techniques to three vocational education park design cases with public space layouts. The study provides a quantitative analysis of the overall and localized degree of space integration and uses these values to perform linear regression analysis. The intensification layout style stands out as a superior approach that establishes a relationship for the composition of public space in a vocational education park. This relationship’s decisive influence is explored based on an analysis of the education and administration style of vocational schools. A model and optimization proposal is put forward within a certain scope for the degree of space integration with respect to the jointly coupled factors of space composition, education style, and school administration style. With vocational education park public space intensification as a goal and the ability to numerically evaluate data based on degree of integration, vocational education park design evaluation criteria can be established. From now on, the proposed vocational education park public space layout intensification method will provide a scientific and quantitative standard that will ensure a sustainable design strategy for China’s characteristic vocational education parks.