Complicating The Line project cover — Early sectional sketch describing layered occupation beneath elevated infrastructure.

Complicating The Line: Reimagining Urban Infrastructure

Type: Urban Infrastructure
Location: Yan'an Elevated Road, Shanghai, China
Instructor: Prof. Andrea Simitch
Prof. Isidoro Michan-Guindi
Year: 2025 · Graduation Thesis
Thesis Book (PDF)

Elevated expressways improve urban mobility while dividing neighborhoods and leaving extensive spaces beneath them underused. This thesis focuses on Shanghai's Yan'an Elevated Road corridor to explore how transportation infrastructure can also support community connections and public life.

The proposal introduces three complementary systems above and below the expressway: the Green Line, the Water Line, and the Public Line which supports everyday encounters and collective activities. Together, these interventions reconnect the two sides of the corridor, transforming a transportation route into a network of public spaces for gathering and participation.

Informal Gathering · Robert van der Hilst, 1991

From Residual Space to Public Life

The project begins with activities already taking place beneath elevated roads: gathering, playing cards, dancing, and finding shade. These informal uses reveal that the underside of infrastructure is not simply empty space. Rather than removing the expressway, the design asks how its structure can support more deliberate places for encounter and collective life.

Public Line · Intimate Spaces Beneath the Deck

Public Line · A Continuous Pedestrian Route

Green Line · An Elevated Urban Connection

Green Line · Planting Between the Roadways

Water Line · Water and Pedestrian Movement

Water Line · Recalling the Buried Waterway

Water Line · A Pool Within the Infrastructure

Three Lines, Three Ways of Occupying Infrastructure

The collages test three complementary systems rather than one fixed building. The Green Line introduces continuous planting and public open space above and around the roadway; the Water Line recalls the corridor's buried waterways through water channels, pools, and spaces for leisure. Both treat the existing infrastructure as a framework for new landscape experiences.

The Public Line works at the scale of the body. Repetition, changes in enclosure, and new pedestrian routes turn the underside of the road into places to pause, meet, and gather. Together, the three lines add ecological, historical, and social layers to a structure otherwise organized around the movement of vehicles.

Crossing the Expressway · An Elevated Passage

North–South Connections Within the Urban Fabric

Yan'an Elevated Road · Airport to the Bund

Site I Study Model · Exhibition Complex and Park

Site II Study Model · Park and University

Yan'an Elevated Road as a Connective Framework

Yan'an Elevated Road connects Hongqiao International Airport with the Bund and intersects Shanghai's three ring roads. Housing, offices, cultural facilities, and parks along the route make it an urban corridor as well as a transport system. The proposal uses shared spaces and pedestrian links to reconnect the north and south sides rather than treating each underpass as an isolated leftover site.

Three sites develop the Public Line in different settings: a trade and exhibition complex, a university, and a bar. Their relationships with nearby parks give each intervention a different purpose, from extending exhibitions into public space to accommodating student activities and the transition between daytime leisure and nightlife.

Reconfiguring Reclaimed Materials

All components used for the reconfiguration are reclaimed building materials. Concrete culverts, drainage channels, beams, slabs and stairs are recombined with metal pipes, structural sections, mesh and plastic components. Their existing shapes and dimensions provide a vocabulary for reorganizing the spaces beneath the elevated road, linking material reuse with the reuse of urban infrastructure.

Reclaimed Material Inventory · Concrete, Metal and Plastic Components

Site I · Extending Exhibitions into the City

Between the trade and exhibition complex and the park, an open-plan intervention allows commercial and cultural activities to extend beneath the road. Sculpture displays offer park visitors a shaded place to look and linger, while temporary stalls allow exhibitors to bring their displays outside. The model and section show how a pedestrian link and a movable side stair connect this elevated gathering space with the ground, making circulation part of the public experience.

Site I · Connecting the Park and Exhibition Complex

Site I · Exhibition and Pedestrian Connections

Site I · Model of the Movable Side Stair

Site II · A Public Space That Changes Configuration

Near Donghua University, the second site connects Tianshan Park with neighboring housing and student life. A movable stair system adjusts the relationship between enclosure and openness. Open stairs form stepped seating for gathering, performances, or exercise; closing them creates a more secluded setting.

The perspectives test a pool with public seating and a temporary fashion runway as different forms of occupation. The runway responds to the nearby fashion-related setting and occasional events such as fashion week. Rather than fixing the site to a single program, the same structural framework supports everyday recreation and more concentrated temporary activities.

Site II · Park and Student Housing Connections

Site II · Adaptable Public Space in Plan

Site II · Model of the Opening Stair System

Site III · From Daytime Leisure to Nightlife

The third intervention links a park and a bar on opposite sides of the expressway. One side accommodates performances with passing vehicles as a moving backdrop; the other introduces a pool for daytime recreation and socializing. At night, the pool setting can host parties connected to the surrounding nightlife.

Operable corrugated shading components, shown in the model and perspectives, make changing overhead conditions part of the spatial experience. Here, the proposal tests not only a connection across the road but also a change over time, allowing a shared framework to support both quiet leisure and collective celebration.