Urban-Rural Revitalization Space for Sustainable Social Value: An Evaluation in Redesigning Built Environment in Taiwan

Abstract

With the rapid development of globalization, industrialization, urbanization, and informatization, numerous economic activities are aggregated in cities, resulting in uneven resources distribution between urban and rural areas. Additionally, the falling fertility rate has led to the existence of many abandoned education-related architectures in both areas. When an architectural space is non-operational, it delivers neither the fundamental spatial value nor contributes any interaction to its neighbors. This research conducts two educational architecture analyses with respect to their redesign programs in order to evaluate the relation between space and local community. Also, the spatial hierarchy, scale, and characteristics of locality are further investigated in the hope of gaining a deeper understanding of how different revitalization approaches might lead to diverse interaction patterns in the areas. This study shows that different spatial characteristics can affect how people perceive the public space and the way they interact with it. In addition, an effective redesign progress should enhance both space utilization and human-environmental interactions since it can not only promote regional development but also the overall environment sustainability. Thus, an abandoned architecture can be a potential element to invigorate the local community either economically or emotionally.

1. Introduction

Taiwan’s birth rate has decreased over the year, affecting many schools’ entry percentages, which became a problem for managing a school’s operations. Many schools have tried to find a method to avoid school closure due to declining enrollment. The population structure is not just a number, but rather an issue related to an entire social and economic environment. At the same time, the aging population is slowly affecting the region’s development in Taiwan [1]. In the past, urban-first development strategies have exacerbated a downturn in rural areas during the socio-economic transition. Hence, many companies are willing to invest the business and move their industry facilities to the rural area [2]. This consequence expands the basic infrastructure in the develop region; similarly, more emphasis has been put on the living conditions by the residents. The increasing industrial movement and population have stimulated the economy and land value in the rural area. However, under this society’s survival competition, the public has moved to the inhabitation that possesses more social welfare resources. Thus, this conversion causes the second population emigration, and area development stagnation happens again in the rural district [3,4,5]. According to such rapid switch in social and economic structure, it is quite challenging in building a comprehensive development plan in the rural areas of Taiwan.

Many crises have resulted in overbuilding or preventing local attractions from staying in the same area; infrastructures such as schools, factories, and houses do not share the similar level of mobility with human beings. In another words, when people switch living places, many institutions are abandoned, which becomes a serious issue in a rural area. In particular, the school facilities in the region face the most severe problems from this population movement [6]. Whether the school has been regenerated or not, school facility still represents a product of an era in the district [7]. Neither elder generations nor younger generations could deny that their time at schools were a memory that existed in their growing period. Despite the emotional aspects of preserving the abandoned school, the characteristic of space design for a school’s renovation is a crucial impact on redeveloping a community [8].

Essentially, the purpose of preserving an abandoned school is to make the genius loci of the school and its neighboring to be seen again [9]. The prevailing character or atmosphere of a place is the statement to study during this research. The public believes that school facility is an intermedium to reconnect the public and place after its regeneration [10]. Also, this intermedium can assist in collecting the social culture value and identity of the neighborhood, which is an important message for every inhabitant in the future. In the same way, a professional designer should utilize the knowledge of architectural technic, either emotionally or rationally, to assist the neighborhood in improving the quality of their environment [11]. To summarize, The significance of this research is to discover the equilibrium in spatial order, territorial relationship, and programming arrangement through a series of architectural design strategies; moreover, this study revises the configuration approach to improve the design to extend the building lifecycle and represent the scenario of a real community.

1.1. Urban Expansion and Landscape Variation

The disparities between urban and rural areas indirectly affect many transformations in the landscape appearance of urban-rural areas, giving residents opportunities to reevaluate their living space or neighboring environment [12]. A city’s landscape architecture variation encourages each individual to notice the dissimilarity; at the same time, the difference can improve everyone’s living quality both in physical and mental health [13]. The definition of human living space includes not only their own accommodations but also every element of the street, characteristic of the building, and interaction between people and their activity in a district [14]. Also, humankind has established an environment to live, interact, and exchange to adopt the social movement. Thus, when designing the space or environment, people should take the rich landscape elements, the diverse spatial scales, and different ways of interpersonal interactions into account. With a thorough understanding of both geographical and residential needs, a more efficient plan can thus be established to raise the overall usage and value of a land [15,16].

1.2. Culture Dynamic of Architecture Environment

Addressing the idea of the dynamic culture, Professor Tom Porter explains that the “Dynamic is the sign of life. Dynamic implies movement, and movement involves energy and time” [17]. The social experience of architectural environment refers to a new design viewpoint. From the perspective of a new cultural experience of life, the historical process of region development has influenced the school architecture to play a central role in the neighborhood. Since the unpredicted transformation of societal culture, each period of the school architecture configuration in the environmental space will dedicate the image of a district. Also, the policy of the regional development is always focusing on supporting economic development, protecting the land, and improving human living standards that establish a coordination and organization functions between the school architecture and the neighborhood. The characteristic of the culture dynamic is also reflecting the designer’s vision and planning strategy that create appropriate redesign programs for architecture environment. Furthermore, the decision maker usually plays a critical role in ensuring that the renovation process is well organized to provide supervision and guidance to the participant, private enterprises, and the residence [18].

At the end of the 18th century, the school architecture’s system has changed throughout the entire educational institutions. A group of people (for instance, the academic educator, politicians, and locally active inhabitants) gathered to discusses the connection between people and education. Thus, the perception towards school architecture had reformed significantly in Europe and continue the local historical culture value to enhance in the society. In the 19th century, a local school was gradually developed into a territorially linked school systems, which required a mass site plan with specific school building for the purpose of learning [19]. The evidence from historical resources indicates that when a school architecture is the major dominant of the region landscape, the school is also involved in the representation of the place. Furthermore, the school architecture displays the strong position of buildings and neighborhoods [20,21].

A sustainable regional environment is a society-wide long-term concern; moreover, it remains the quality of the citizens’ life [22]. To start the redesign progress from a place, to understanding the minimum environmental destruction effect by participating the place with human living progression is an important investigation. Specifically, the fundamental thinking is to realize the natural progress, then to understand how to take the benefit without destroying the nature resource. On the other hand, the technology usage should focus on two subjects: low-impact environment and high efficiently solutions [23]. A comprehensive school architecture redesign project should learn from the surrounding environment and share the land value with the public (Figure 1) [24].

Moreover, the reason for renovating the school architecture is to bring in positive effects to the region. Different scales of school architecture have been redesigned to fit with different purposes such as the case of Daimyo Elementary School in Fukuoka Prefecture, Japan [25]. Daimyo Elementary School was closed in 2014 due to the loss of the student population. Also, the school is located in the center of the shopping and business district in Tenjin area. Due to the land scarcity and the urban development policy in Tenjin area, Fukuoka. Daimyo Elementary School has been preserved and converted into multifunction programs for its citizens. The redesigned space offers several utilization functions such as co-working spaces, restaurants, and rental offices, which increase the overall profit of the building and land value. Another example is Hota Elementary School in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Hota Elementary School is changed into a tourist center which includes a hotel, local agriculture store, and hot spring service in a rural area. Both schools’ space is reutilized efficiently in different scales of settlement; additionally, the architectures have enhanced both ecological and social considerations [26,27]. In spite of being abandoned either due to population migration or economic development policy, both schools’ have represented different values in their surrounding [28]. After a systematic redesign plan and a framework of interrelationship with the inhabitant and public living, the school architecture has the potential to represent a friendly built environment [29,30].

2. Materials and Methods

In this research, the spatial reconfiguration design is one of the sustainable approaches to enhance an abandoned architectural value in a built environment. Also, this architectural redesign process reconnects the social activity and human aspiration with the variety of natural systems [31,32]. This study assumes that the connection between next-generation architectural planning and environmental behavior design is the crucial design task during the reuse design process. Its purpose is to describe and explain how the existing architectural configuration should respond and adapt in a timely manner to support the current overall environmental design space. Also, the regeneration results echo the changes in the current social structure and challenges. Ultimately, what is at stake here is that the redesigned school architecture could assist the region in revitalizing and enhancing the community’s identity (Figure 2). Moreover, the analysis approach towards behavioral science and the architectural theories from this research are based on the theories from Edward T. Hall. [33]. Edward came up with a theory called proxemics, which is a theory that studies the necessary space between users and their behaviors, moreover, the relationship between culture and social environment, includes three different levels of behavior spatial definition: privacy, personal space, and territoriality [34]. The beginning of this study discusses the hierarchy of space design in public school spaces by using the proxemics theory. However, as the social environment structure is different from the past, the analysis criteria of spatial behavior is modified in accordance with the current redesign situation such the region crisis, participant communication, and lack of local resources.

According to the concept and method, each research material demonstrates the different quality of space reuse efficiency and provide a distinctive approach of architectural design mechanism. Moreover, when the architecture program has been established, the influence of the facility’s function determines the user behavior. These various arguments will have significant applications in user legitimizing identity as well as in design project identity in the region. Beyond reconfiguring the school space, the relationship is encompassing the identity of region and building together, which is an important effect with regards to reestablishing the built environment in this study [35].

2.1. Review the Architectural Strategy of Redesign Process

Architecture is a kind of aggregate reproduction of the relationship among the daily living objects of human beings in the environment. Moreover, it represents multiple combinations such as humankind, creatures, behavior, event, requirement, object, space and environment, and technology. There is no doubt that the formation is a unique land scenery from a space to the place when the redesign component is converted to a new landscape characteristic. In fact, this formation phenomena represents a specific period and place (e.g., collective public living, culture, economic value, political affect, and space aesthetics). All singularities together reproduce the regional landscape and social epitome under the integration of social aspects. Overall, social value, culture, economy, spatial aesthetics, regional politics, the trend of the times in a certain period, and the lifestyle of people in a particular district can be emphasized during architectural programming and architecture placemaking [36]. The affiliation between architecture and users, people and environment, architecture and time will restructure through redesigning the architectural space process [37].

This research aims at studying the cases of school architecture that was restored and transformed by mergers or abandonment locate in southern Taiwan. It conducts the methods of spatial order systems to predict and simulate space forms, user behavior, and requirement from the stakeholder. By extension, a comprehensive system plan is further conducted to identify critical issues related to building restoration. This research attempts to revise the restore cases from the field survey to explore the crucial point of architectural formation layout and space reconfiguration characteristic, especially to steer the actual user behavior and architectural redesign strategy together. Thus, the discoveries are the foundation for developing a series of elements for the redesign execution process and establishing a design dialogue system for the designer, community, and government to communicate and understand what the best advantage is to maintain the building for the area, what should be improved to make it better, what is the potential or strength to utilize the space in future area enlargement. The comprehensive architectural environment redesign system should include the marketing and management scheme, the distinguishing elements of environmental setting, and realizing the basic needs of the local residents [38]. The overall concept of architectural environment redesign process diagram is shown in Figure 3.

2.2. Rebuild the Built Environment and Public Interaction

According to the study of reviewing and examining the process of school building regeneration condition, the purpose is to observe and understand a local community through redesigning the abandoned school buildings. When a school building faces the transformation of today’s social structure, the transition of political standpoint and the development towards economic benefits, an abandoned school earns a new chance to prove its potential to the social environment [39]. However, the meaning of the school itself in a region should not be limited only to the value of historic architecture, historic sites, and aesthetic judgment values. No matter whether the school building is being preserved or demolished, as long as it has fewer safety issues to worry about, the inspection criteria and evaluation judgment are suggested to leave the opportunity to the community or the public to decide the maintenance or removement of the school building. Instead of discussing the school architectural style value, building’s sustainability is the priority issue for people to consider in our built environment [40].

Usually, a school is the center of territory in a neighborhood, a shelter when a natural disaster happens, and a place for the community to host cultural events. Attending classes and participating community activities in local schools are considered to be a common experience in most of the resident’s lives. People have spent tremendous time on participating activities in the school from childhood to adulthood. Also, the place-human interaction in everyone’s memory of a place should be recalled by promoting the revitalization of the area [41]. By extension, school architecture is alike an intermedium vessel to fill the daily lives of the environment and neighbors, whether from the past or present. Many people used to think that the abandoned school should just be destroyed in the best way from an economic opinion. But within the past few years, several cases suggested that reusing the abandoned school building can create extra value to local communities, which becomes a concerning topic for every government in every country [42,43].

Currently, if the public or designers stop thinking about the important meaning of school architecture as an image of the city, many of them might simply assume that school architecture is just an ancient artifact with no value, not to mention the popularity of new fashion and style of architecture among the public. However, many new government policies proved that an abandoned school could bring several impacts on social interaction and improve the region’s development [26,44]. Architecture as a space plays a role in understanding the relationship between its user behavior and the daily activities around it. Therefore, the following interpersonal behavior and spatial behavior after the abolition of a school are the basic point to understand the direction of the architectural redesign plan and further enhance the connection of the neighborhood.

The architectural space used in daily lives should reflect the reality of social life and the essence of life events [45]. When the building shows only a three-dimensional geometry space without any function, the building is simply an empty shell of the structural volume. When the building volume begins to be associated with the construction process, architecture design form and living, the architecture space evolves and reflects a place of living style, presents a cultural story, and social trend that represents the current generation. The building begins to have the existence of a life force and represents the rise and fall of a period to which the present belongs. This is also a process of alternating regional cultural fields, and it is also the most direct existence of the intangible culture in the era, and the value of such buildings will be evaluated according to more impact assessment factors, including policy, history, culture, economy, society, and other aspects.

2.3. Description of Selected Objects and Geographic Background

Recently, the number of social and environmental movements aiming for local cultural identity has increased. Meanwhile, the use of public or shared space has gradually attracted people’s attention [46]. Hence, an architectural space is oriented towards diversity and cultural multiplicity in the public domain and then abandons the pursuit of ordinariness. Nevertheless, if an abandoned school is given a chance to be reborn for another purpose for the public, the space’s arrangement will be affected by the new architecture program and design priority [47]. In this situation, the space level would be divided into different use of property, forms, and time. The mobility of the school’s space with the design methods and program demand would be the major discussion in this research. This research assumes that an abandoned school represents a node to create the sense of a place after redesigning in a neighborhood. Also, the reborn place is an intermedium to gather the user and improve the social interaction for people’s daily lives. Meanwhile, this study focuses on three aspects: spatial order, territorial characteristic, and the sociability value of public places. The balance of these three aspects can assist all designers, inhabitants, and decision maker to have a clear insight in redeveloping the region in the future (Figure 4).

This research evaluates two abandoned schools in the southern part of Pingtung County in Taiwan [1]. However, since the population in Pingtung County is unevenly distributed, with nearly a quarter of the population lives in Pingtung city and the remaining, which mostly is elder people, resides in suburbs. Despite the fact that leading industries in Pingtung County involve a variety of agriculture production and nature scenery, more is needed to attract people to visit or live in the region. The interdisciplinary cooperation of the local residents in interacting with the new participant in the school space.

Therefore, the Pingtung Government has promoted a regional development plan that starts to convert, redesign, and renovate the abandoned school in several townships in Pingtung County. Each project is established with a goal to create a space for skills training, studying, and exchanging daily lives. In the transformation process, the unused facility such as an abandoned school and its campus can play the role of matchmaking in a region. Not only the space offers different programs but also creates a place to reinforce the local resources, identities, and regional characteristics. Just as important, the school facilities have been redesigned as well as the phenomena of the region is reformed to reconnect the social relations. Moreover, this built environment is rebuilding the community consciousness to exchange the ideas through the regeneration period. The detailed background of the two regeneration schools is shown in

Table 1. Description of Redesign School Architecture.

No.	Image of School	School Architectural Information	Site Plan
	Pingtung Education Innovation Unit (Checheng Elementary School Wencyuan Branch), Pingtung County, Taiwan
S1		■ School age: 69 years (1951–2020) ■ Regenerated date: 25 September 2022 ■ Building structure: Reinforced Concrete ■ Single use with educational learning and instructor skill training purpose.
S2	Pingtung AI Agri Hub (Nanhua Elementary School), Pingtung County, Taiwan
		■ School age: 53 years (1967–2020) ■ Regenerated date: 11 January 2021 ■ Building structure: Reinforced Concrete ■ Single use with digital technic learning and agriculture knowledge exchange purpose.

.

3. Research Analysis and Results

In order to understand the space utilization pattern and the regenerated school architecture utilization, two case studies from the field survey indicate that convenience is the main consideration in space design. Also, the characteristic of the space has been transferred and directed into a new usage function during the architectural regenerated design process and its new architectural programming strategy. This research starts with few analysis steps to explore the abandoned school architecture through its reuse arrangement. To understand the original use of the space in these school architectures, this study begins to analyze the floor plan layout between the original and the new design plans.

Also, the research uses the building reconfiguration measure and methods to review the overall changes of the school architecture such as space use, architecture facade, structure system, mechanical system, and campus landscape. As a result, both plans show that the main structure remains the same as the original but that the interior space is rearranged with different purposes and functions. Usually, the classroom area is easy to divide into small rooms by using light walls to separate the rooms. Therefore, some interior spaces are reorganized into several personal studios, while other classrooms are transformed into an exhibition room or are kept empty for flexible usage such as learning classroom, retail store, communication rooms, and auditorium rooms (Figure 5 and Figure 6).

The result of investigating the building reconfiguration is shown on

Table 2. Building Reconfiguration measures and methods.

Category	Checheng Elementary School Wencyuan Branch, Pingtung County, Taiwan					Nanhua Elementary School, Pingtung County, Taiwan
	Floor Plan	Facade	SE	ME	LA	Floor Plan	Facade	SE	ME	LA
Repair	-	◯	-	●	-	-	⊙	-	⊙	-
Renovate	●	◯	⊙	●	-	●	◯	⊙	◯	-
Reorganize	⊙	-	-	●	-	◯	-	-	⊙	-
Transform	●	-	-	-	-	●	-	-	-	-
Rebuild	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	●
Reproduce	-	-	-	-	⊙	-	-	-	-	-
Remain	-	-	●	-	-	-	-	●	-	-
Demolish	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-

SE = Structure, ME = Mechanical, LA = Landscape. ⊙ = <50% changed, ◯ = >50% changed, ● = 100% All Space Changed.

, indicating that many architectural elements had been changed, especially at the mechanical system. Most of the environmental control system had been renovated and reorganized. Since these school buildings have been established for 50 years, all the pipes, wires, and electricity control boxes had been renewed for future usage. At the field, most of the cooling system had been replaced or added with a new model and new lighting figures had been chosen by taking aesthetics and eco-friendly aspects into consideration. However, the most different part in the new layout of these two cases is the landscape area. The landscape design in Checheng Elementary School Wencyuan Branch doesn’t change much comparing to the outdoor area in the program of Nanhua Elementary School, which is completely redesigned to provide its neighborhood a space to social with others or participate diverse activities at any time [48].

3.1. Definition of Spatial Analysis

When the building space is transformed into different utilization from the solid to the void space [49], the approach between design thinking and architecture placemaking in an existing limited layout could happen in different formats, scale, and property (Figure 7). The different use of space can enhance the importance of spatial hierarchy’s arrangement. Also, the spatial organization during the regeneration process would be challenged. Undoubtedly, humans possess the spatial-cognitive ability to understand and manipulate the environment, and this ability allows people to understand the space around their daily lives.

Symbol of Identity and Characteristic

Before starting to analyze the school space, this research has designed spatial property symbols in order to assist this process to understand the space’s property faster and simply to identify during studying the spatial hierarchy relationship. Also, while analyzing the plan layout, the symbol could be read easily on the drawing. The symbols are threefold: node as a circle, space as a square, and triangle as a device space. Furthermore, Space’s characteristic can be defined from the solid line to the dashed line to represent the space property from solid to void. This symbol design in this research is created in the hope of creating a tool to assist the future designers or redesign participants read the space in a professional way (

Table 3. Legend Charts.

Property	Node	Space	Device Space
Solid
Intermediate Space
Void

).

3.2. Hierarchical Analysis of Spatial Patterns

Both Figure 8a,b and Figure 9a,b show the spatial analysis plans from the original school layout to redesign plan; also, the analysis result is transformed into a graph to explain the spatial order. The symbol X1Y4 in Figure 8c, d indicates that the two nodes are the primary segmentation to divide the space between solid space and void space. The property of this node is presented as a corridor, which is always the control factor to the next depth level; at the same time, the node has increased a new loop after the redesign strategy in Figure 8d. Another transformation result of deeper convenience device symbols are X3Y6 and X5Y7. Both symbols are storage space designed without less action require on the first floor plan in Figure 8d. Also, the most deepest depth of the space shows at symbols X1Y8, X2Y8, X3Y8, and X1Y5 are the toilet spaces in overall floor plans (Figure 8d and Figure 9d), which represents the most unnecessary convenience but basic human needs, in the regeneration program without any activity value.

Furthermore, the redesign plan of the served spaces ends in Y6 (Figure 8d) on the first floor and Y3 (Figure 9d) on the second floor that show the shallow permeability of the space. On the other hand, although even the room is very shallow, the convenience for the served function is required for education or training purposes. Thus, the scale of room is redesigned to expand a new space form that is indicated in Figure 8b. Even though the amount of the room symbols is the same, but the use efficiency is still restricted by the original plan layout. Thus, the social activity variety and people’s interaction are also limited by the physical environment condition. For example, each event has been separated in each room, room is either open or close, and space management.

Another research case is Pingtung AI Agri Hub. The graph of the spatial order shows that the control factor to start the space order is also the same symbol as Pingtung Education Innovation Unit. In Figure 10c,d and Figure 11c,d, symbol X1YB is corridor, which is the main element that transits from outdoor to indoor room; also, it separates the overall space layout in to two parts, especially in the plan of the first floor. The space property in the AI Agri Hub is very simple. Most of the symbols are rooms shown on Y4, with 6 rooms on the first floor and 12 rooms on the second floor after the redesign program. However, although he numbers of the rooms are evenly distributed, the length of the floor plan is very lengthy. In other words, this kind of design would encourage more individual usage instead of social usage.

To enhance the privacy of the space, the result shows that several scales of the room is redesigned in the area on the right second floor (Figure 11b). Those spaces have their own entries, and the interface between those space is designed into different shape to recognize each room’s characteristic. Another different design that has been changed is the symbol X3Y4, which indicated that two original rooms in this space are combined into one big room (Figure 11b). Also, following the same design strategy on the first floor in symbol X8Y4 and X9Y4 (Figure 10b), both rooms have been expanded twice bigger than the original architecture layout. Therefore, all spaces are at the same level of convenience, which is agreeable on the purpose of service, but the distinguishing feature of each space is difficult to recognize. Additionally, there is no device space in this case, which means that the servant space was not considered during the redesign process. At this point, the analysis of the spatial order in this AI Agri Hub does not give much different hierarchy after the redesign process.

Comparing the two cases’ result, the most similar disadvantage is the restriction of the spatial configuration from the original architecture plan. The new redesign idea will be limited by the form of the corridor; the circulation path controls and the user’s walking experience in exploring the space. Moreover, the new requirement of space function is also difficult to reflect a big modification after the redesign. The designer will keep the same layout as much as possible to stay out the structure issue. The hierarchy of spatial order should give the old space a new personality to represent the characteristics. Without the attractive impression of the space, the revisit tendency from the space visitor will reduce.

3.3. Territorial Differentiation of the Space

Following the idea of the territory transformation in Figure 12, it shows that this section’s analysis discusses the spatial qualities in the school facility. The facility is redesigned to offer the new architecture program for everyone. A reborn space such as a school keeps the architecture form, but the inner spirit of the space has switched to meet the requirement of the present time. Spatial quality in between the public and private space can be represented with different social value such as the self-responsibility, the sense of the space and the identity of the environment. On the other hand, the words of public and private can be described as the interactional relationship between collective group and individual group [50].

The territorial differentiation and the results from the field survey are divided into four categories: personal space, limited service space, functional service space, and public space (PLS, LSS, FSS, PBS) that is shown in

Table 4. Transformation Analysis of Territory Function.

Category	Pingtung Education Innovation Unit (PEIU)				Pingtung AI Agri Hub (PAAH)
	1st FL		2nd FL		1st FL		2nd FL
	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
PLS	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯
NO. SPACES	1	3	1	3	1	1	1	1
LSS	◯	◯	X	X	◯	◯	◯	◯
NO. SPACES	2	2	0	0	8	2	8	9
FSS	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯
NO. SPACES	2	1	2	2	1	4	1	3
PBS	X	◯	X	X	X	◯	X	X
NO. SPACES	0	1	0	0	0	1	0	0

PLS = Personal space, LSS = Limited service space, FSS = Functional service space, and PBS = Public space. ◯ = Transformed, X = None.

. Meanwhile, shared space can be designed in numerous forms, spaces, and order. During this research process, the study divides the shared space into two types, semi-public and semi-private spaces, that refer to functional service space and limited service space, which is the middle part of the diagram from Figure 12. Thus, through the analysis of this study, the redesigned architectural plan after the building construction and the campus reconfiguration use four dissimilar territory categories to examine the new territorial function property and spatial management. The result shows serious characteristics of redesign policy, user’s authority of the space, and the frequency of interaction quality. In Table 4 shows that the private claims on public space in Pingtung Education Innovation Unit are more emphasized than AI Agri Hub. Also, the same results on the public space category are only increase one space on both first floor plan after the redesign strategy.

Comprehensive Territorial Analysis on Educational and Culture Program

In analyzing two school architecture cases, the main structure of both Pingtung Education Innovation Unit (PEIU) and Pingtung AI Agri Hub (PAAH) remains the same. Also, two cases have the same programing target to focus, which are the local resource utilization and educational knowledge training. On the other hand, the territory property requires a space with different level of interaction. As the results shown, the main circulation system in charge the user’s circulation behavior from a single linear pathway to enter each room directly, which seems very convenient. However, the single linear circulation type also declines the chances of interactional behavior, because this design reduces the opportunity for exchanging the ordinary dialogue for every participant. The most functional spaces show that the space’s form is hard for users to notice what is happening inside and outside since the exchange information experience provide only in each space. Under these circumstances, activities hosted in the space are limited to the shape of the territory zone. To put it another way, the user’s behavior becomes one-way in and out because participators stay in a room without any interaction with outer spaces (Figure 13b, Figure 14d, Figure 15b and Figure 16d).

Conversely, the limited service space in both cases indicates a specific service for the new programming such as requiring a certain time condition of space management. In these two cases, the Pingtung AI Agri Hub increased the limited service space more than the Pingtung Education Innovation Unit. The results show different opinions on the interaction exchange behavior in the Pingtung AI Agri Hub, and the importance of the special subject. For example, the cultural elongation reinforces the significant local industrial development is the first consideration during the redesign purpose. Hence, the space design property can offer more possibilities for users to have their own space or authority to perform their own needs. As the transformation of territory functions shown in Table 4, the numbers of the space between limited and functional services have been designed for more spaces to interact on the first and second floor in both cases. On the contrary, the public space has been decreased to put more emphasis on proving individual space. Pingtung Education Innovation Unit shows that personal space is represented as both toilet and shower rooms for basic human physical needs on the second floor plan (Figure 13b).

More detail from the figures demonstrates that the building of Pingtung Education Innovation Unit has been added with an exterior pathway on the left corner and with on exterior stair on the right side of the corridor to connect between the space and the outdoor territory (Figure 13). The entrance of the green area on the first floor is also close to the new outdoor stair, welcoming the visitor from the exterior. After the space has been redefined as an activity and communication functions, this public space is reinforcing the social interchange between the facility and neighboring environment. Additionally, on the second floor plan in Figure 13, the building’s territory differentiation is increasing a room for personal space to show a different spatial order in a public accessibility of private space.

In Pingtung AI Agri Hub, this school building shows that the territory functions and space order had completely exchanged towards the more private claims on public domain by not only opening the room for particular limited service such as the retail store on the first floor (Figure 15b) but also several private spaces on the second floor (Figure 16b). Likewise, there are more functional service spaces for serving, training, learning, and assisting spaces for everyone who needs knowledge of agriculture and business development. Despite the building’s space design on public usage, the only public space for everyone to enter without any restriction is the green area at the right side corner on the first floor (Figure 15b).

Additionally, the analysis shows that he Pingtung AI Agri Hub emphasizes more on the territorial diffenentiation both in semi public and semi private functions. The architecture plan demonstrates that usage flexibility from the past and present shows that the limited service space is exchanged for functional service on both floor, which allows people to utilize the space longer without any space authority management and restriction (Figure 15 and Figure 16). On the second floor, the plan layout is almost the same besides the fact that personal space has been split into two functions in one same space. The new servant property had provided not only toilet but also shower functions, for people who stay in the limited service space (for example, the personal studio room at the right side of tha main stair (Figure 16b)). Hence, this new design thinking outcome has establish a different duty for users while they are using the built environment space. The redeign architectural space give the public, even the inhabitants to rethink the idienity of the facility in the neighboring. Moreover, the sense of the space and place consciousness can be reconstructed through the user behavior, and social interaction within the space.

3.4. Comprehensive Redesign Value of the Land

Generally speaking, the campus is always restricited by regulation. The public is not allowed to enter the campus without special persmission. In Taiwan, schools are designed to suit the needs of educational staffs and students only. This boundary is always designed as an obstacle to draw a clear line on the site, but the research results show that the regeneration design changes the performance of the campus [51]. On the other hand, both cases indicate a deep rooted idea of relating the public space to the first floor of the building as well as its exterior landscape area. First of all, the landscape elements are redesigned with different functions, shapes, and varity of plants, so that these designs change the user’s behavior expereience and provide a nature environment to enjoy with the scenery between landscape and individuals (Figure 17 and Figure 18).

Secondly, since the boundary on the site is opened and extended to connect the surrounding, the campus is converted into a place with a fridenly environment. More specifically, in Pingtung AI Agri Hub, it not only removes the barrier but also designs a symbolic art work to represent the image of the new transformation. Converselly, in the Pingtung Education Innovation Unit, the land extends only a small part of the campus to connect to the community, the activity is more focus on the interior than exterior. Even though the building is redesigned to function as an exterior pathway to connect to the community, the interaction benefit is still lower than the Pingtung AI Agri Hub. This appearance clearly shows in the Pingtung AI Agri Hub (Figure 18b) than the Pingtung Education Innovation Unit (Figure 17b).

Finally, the landscape space has changed to a many diverse scales. Not only can the user manipulate the activity in a variety of performance, but also the visual experience is more penetrating on the spatial sensation. However, since the redesign requirements in both cases are different, the green arrow shows that the visual experience is also different. As the results shows that the the Pingtng Education Innovation Unit is the only reused building on campus, the space sensation reflects that the vision is more about the architecture itself than the landscpae (Figure 17). In the Pingtung AI Agri Hub, the redesign skill is focuing on opening perception and wide view, also the landscape space trasformation has given the neighboring a fresh impression (Figure 18). Since the land transformed into different level of physical and mental experiences for the user, the space has reestablished social connections among its users, the neighborhood, and the land. Furthmore, the overall renovated facility presents a new image of the local region.

4. Discussions

Even if the school architecture had been closed and was transformed into a new architectural program, the school architecture as one of the public buildings should be regarded as the cradle of public lives around the neighboring society. According to the territorial quality analysis (Figure 19a), the research discusses strongly on the community’s dialogue and exchange of public affairs through a particular territory analysis level among the public, shared, and private spaces, especially during the progress of sharing spaces that also separated into semi-public and semi-private parts (not only to understand the user behavior relationship but also to evaluate the property of the space (Figure 19b)).

The results show that both cases are not reinforcing the public space in the building much since the architectural program has been decided before the user or the participation of the community. Also, the two cases still retain the outdoor space that provide the public’s property (this kind of space will also seem similar to a public space). The shared space is an intermediate space, which has opportunities to make the ordinary behavior slink with the social connection between users and visitors. While the shared space in both cases have a few limitations such as the architecture layout and environmental control system, either making a space or leaving a space is always a reason to rearrange the form, style, and order in a shared space.

Additionally, both cases have different types of living behavior in the personal territory differentiation, which assume that the users will stay overnight or live in a school building during a period. The Pingtung Education Innovation Unit has provided accommodation room on the second floor, and the Pingtung AI Agri Hub has offered the shower rooms on the second floor. Thus, the dwelling service can be one of the basic requirements when the school faces redesign projects. This idea can be discussed with two perspectives: the physiological aspects and the economic phase. School facility has the maximum safety regulation, and most of the design layout are very module pattern; in fact, it is easy inhabiting the form to meet the basic human needs. On the other hand, the school facility provides the fundamental obligation, but the inhabitant exchanges social duties such as maintaining the environment and being responsible for assisting the neighborhood. In making this comment, the circulation of school facility and inhabitants can also produce the social value in various of outcomes. This research believes that the abandoned facility such as a school can replay a role of matchmaking to promote the joint development benefit of the neighborhood environment. Meanwhile, the social value of the abandoned school’s transformation has shown an improvement after the redesign process. The discussion of the four different aspects to reevaluate the environmental value analysis shown in

Table 5. Environmental value Analysis of Campus Transformation.

Category	Pingtung Education Innovation Unit (PEIU)				Pingtung AI Agri Hub (PAAH)
	Building		Campus		Building		Campus
	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After	Before	After
Culture	▲	▲	▲	▲	▲	◯	▲	◯
Aesthetics	X	◯	X	▲	X	◯	X	◯
Economy	X	▲	X	▲	X	◯	X	◯
Services	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯	◯

X = None, ▲ = Normal, ◯ = Improve.

.

The results of this investigation and analysis explain the school architecture’s regeneration process, which shows that the genius loci of an architectural space should be preserved. In fact, the spirit of the space must be renovated to assemble the resources from the neighborhood environment. At this research level, what can be discussed is the environmental value occurred after transforming the built environment. As the results displayed, either the entire campus has redesigned or the building has been renovated, the service and aesthetic value are improved from before (Table 5). However, in the beginning of this field survey, it was noted that both regeneration projects belong to the Pingtung Government, who is also the central decision maker including program design, design team, time management, and construction budgets. Hence, comparing to the campus environmental value aspects in both cases, the Pingtung AI Agri Hub is better than the Pingtung Education Innovation Unit due to the budget and construction time issue [52]. In the current discussion of the school’s transformation, a controversial aspect has been discussed since people are more concerned about the benefit of the new architectural programming and the marketing profit. Moreover, the public often assume that a new space is better than an old space [53]. By focusing on the new architectural property impression, people often overlook the deeper problem of community identity, resource evolvement, and local autonomy.

Since the government’s goal of these two cases is to redevelop the place by redesigning the abandoned school in the rural region. Not only the physical facility needs to be considered but also the social humanities event, the balance between the school architecture and human activity are necessary for the redesign program and strategy. In this point of view, interdisciplinary cooperation and diverse participants share the chance to rebuild the connection in a local environment. Co-creation is a new design opportunity to collect the public message from different professions, backgrounds, and generations.

Both cases have offered a complete redesign space program, but the interdisciplinary cooperation still not as diverse as expected [54]. Most of the co-creators participate the project after the space was reconstructed, which is a bit late to understand the spatial arrangement of the space design. Even though the co-creator doesn’t join the space arrangement significantly, the local activity interchange arrangement has been improved. Not only is educational knowledge absorbed but also culture advertising to the public. The event and its local interaction behavior show in

Table 6. Space Interaction of Campus Environment.

Event	Pingtung Education Innovation Unit (PEIU)		Pingtung AI Agri Hub (PAAH)
	Building	Landscape	Building	Landscape
Image
Activity	Culture learning camp	Elementary field trip	Agriculture lecture	Farmers market & festival
Image
Activity	Instructor training class	Workshop exhibition	Children story telling	Community festival

Source 1: https://www.facebook.com/PingtungEducationInnovationHub/photos; Source 2: https://www.facebook.com/Pingtung.AI.Agri.Hub/photos (both accessed on 3 March 2023).

. Regardless, a new renovate place still attract the public’s eye to participate the event more than an old space without an appropriate space management and operation.

As illustrated, in Pingtung AI Agri Hub, many technical or functional service space has been provided without appropriate popularizing to the everyone. Since the name “AI agriculture” sounds very technical, people hesitate to use the interior space. Thus, the name might only attract those who are interested in certain fields to visit the place. Similar problem happens to the other case as well. Also, the new program services the instructor training for the community in the countryside remain many unsure questions for the local neighborhood. Even though both cases conduct the event are inviting the neighborhood to plan the activity, but the identity of space consciousness still has a long way to establish in the local region.

While the interdisciplinary cooperation is a huge mission, it involves more tasks in order to communicate with everyone in different redesign phases. Still, co-creation and interdisciplinary cooperation have the potential to collect local wisdom and perform the sociability of public places [55]. Therefore, the abandoned school facility becomes a node to accomplish the quality of ordinariness, linkage, security, and sustainability in one place for the future regional development. Furthermore, everyone has the opportunity to determine the spatial design methods of conservation, program transformation, and region revitalization. By bringing in different perspectives, the redesign program will assemble a friendly place and sustainable environment system in the neighborhood (Figure 20).

5. Conclusions and Recommendations

5.1. Conclusions

The two case studies indicate that the first redesign priority is restricted to understand the possibilities of space in architectural placemaking process. Also, the design methods used in this analysis can be a tool to revise the school redesign and architectural programming.

• The original school environment has set a limit to redesign the space, which also points to the difficulty in creating the sense of ordinariness in the local neighborhood. It is difficult for local dwellers to make use of the space through different levels of environmental behaviors and human needs. Also, the space redesign plan is limited by the architecture’s original form and layout, which lead to highly unified space design without fluid characteristics.
• A new position of the redesigned school institution should be created in the neighborhood. Since Taiwan’s birth rate has decreased over the year in many regions, the abandoned school is confronted with the latest district crisis and its development. Whether the school building is rebuilt or renovated, the new architecture program has to increase utilization and improve environmental quality. People often perceive school as an institution that provides educational service for students only and ignore its presence as a common property for the whole community. Another common saying is that when the school space is reformed through the new program, it demands much more time to discuss and educate the surrounding neighborhood to treat the school building as a public facility again. Therefore, determining how to explore core values before redesigning the school space should be the principle of the regenerating process. Moreover, finding the effective way to reinvite the local people and attract outsiders to visit the readjusted school facility should be the main objective of the project.
• A school in a community plays a key role in collecting the dialogue among its owners and users, which in turn, involves a duty to interpret the sense of contemporary of the area. Thus, the redesigning program should base on the needs of physiological and social needs. On the other hand, the school owner should also look for an effective way in enhancing the presence of the reformed school within local community.
• The advantage of reusing the school environment is that one can extend local resources and provide a sustainable environment for future region revitalization. The Unite Nations addressed the agenda for sustainable development in 17 sustainable development goals (SDGs). According to goal 11, sustainable cities and communities can establish an environmentally friendly, safe, resilient city for human settlements. Therefore, reusing the school facility and reserving the service are the direct approach to exemplify the goal of SDGs in a region. However, the redesign program and strategy should be case by case due to the different scale of the area.
• Additionally, each region’s characteristic is showing different phenomenon by its diverse culture. Also, every characteristic of the local resource has its own special element to propaganda the typical subject and perform the idea to the public. Furthermore, during redesigning school project, the school redesign projects can provide several key insights in sustainability, such as reusing the school space in different design ways, linking the industrial knowledge with local resource’s reproduction, and reestablishing the sense of the local identity. Overall, by rediscovering local value, both decision makers and local residetns can further improve the regional development. Therefore, the different viewpoints and processes can stimulate the public’s mind to rethink what is a better space quality in the community and living environment, especially with regards to redesigning space in an abandoned school.

5.2. Recommendations

• Human-space interaction should be recognized and recommended as the basis for forming and continuing social organizations. Whether creating a secure environment for social interaction in business organizations, institutions, or neighborhoods can form a sense of community is always a topic worthy of attention. Although human interaction may seem trivial, it is in fact crucial in terms of today’s concern over what architecture can represent in this social environment. Conversely, as a designer, one must ask what can be done for this small group of individuals and region to improve overall living quality.
• In this research’s discussion of space adaptability and flexibility, built environment-human behavior relationships are, in fact, addressing the more extensive matter of human interaction to create a value standing of the living cognition and spatial behavior in a social structure around the neighborhood. The most basic reason recommended for the important purpose of the interaction is that interaction is necessary for the continuation of human relationships, which are fundamental to a sense of belonging and intimacy.
• The school is a social foundation of architecture to contribution the region development. Since the social atmosphere changes rapidly, and environmental disasters are increasing in frequency more than before, physical protection and human emotional security are necessary with respect to consideration for the lives of inhabitants in a safe neighborhood. Moreover, infrastructure such a school building has already provided the basic structure system for user safety under the architecture design regulation (even more since the facility provides many spaces for states of emergency). Not only it is easy to establish the groundwork, but it is also easy to reinforce security conditions in advance. Thus, the risk of disaster prevention and mitigation programs or requirements should be recommended and considered in the redesign space layout arrangement, which in turn can make the future school facility much more secure than before (and also no matter how the interior space or exterior environment are functioning with regards to the regular activity during normal daily life). When an unexceptional incident happens, the school facility after it is been redesigned is always in a good shape to offer safety in the near future.