From fragmentary remains to spatial translation: a five-dimensional interpretive framework for planning heritage in historically layered urban contexts – the case of the Mingde Gate in Sui-Tang Chang’an

In historically layered urban contexts, the walls and gates of ancient capitals often survive as fragmentary remains, making the planning meanings embedded in them difficult to identify, reorganise, and communicate in urban space. This article examines how information preserved in fragmentary archaeological remains can be reorganised into an interpretive framework for understanding planning wisdom and translated into spatial form in the contemporary city. Drawing on culture-historical, processual, and post-processual archaeology, the study develops a five-dimensional interpretive framework covering natural landscape and cultural context, historical spatial patterns, defence and construction techniques, symbolic culture and ritual, and urban layering processes. Developed from the outer city wall of Sui-Tang Chang’an, the framework is applied to the Mingde Gate Archaeological Park through project documents, field surveys, and archival comparison. To examine how these dimensions entered public communication after the park’s opening, the study uses cross-platform social media content as a retrospective observational source. The findings show that historical spatial patterns, symbolic culture, and technical information were more readily activated in public expression, while environmental relations and urban layering remained limited. The article thus offers an interpretive structure for reorganising fragmentary planning-heritage information and a pathway linking archaeological evidence, heritage interpretation, and contemporary urban presentation.