Student Project | Bridging Borders, Treasures of Wounds

‘Bridging Borders, Treasures of Wounds – A New System of Post-War Cross-Border Planting on the Sino-Vietnamese Border’, and aims to address the problem of people living in the Malipo County on the Sino-Vietnamese border due to the millions of landmines left behind. The project proposes a new circular mechanism that integrates demining, mining and planting – the ‘sixteen grid system’. This mechanism divides the site into plots and introduces Gambian pouched rats for precise demining. At the same time, key buildings are designed to return cleared land to planting, emerald mining and post-war monumental landscapes, allowing agriculture, mineral industry and tourism to contribute to the local economy and raise funds to facilitate the mechanism’s circulation. Through this project, we will provide a safer and more secure environment for cross-border trade between China and Vietnam, offering new opportunities for friendship and exchange between the two peoples.

The site was selected from a 600 hectare mined area in Malipo County, part of China’s Yunnan Province, on the Sino-Vietnamese border. We devised a circular system of demining, mining and planting – a ‘sixteen grid system’. This system divides the site into 16 plots of 1 hectare each, with four types of plots: cleared, built-up, mine exploration and undeveloped.

Firstly, the exploration plots would be burnt for weeds and Gambian pouched rats will be introduced for accurate clearance, then key structures would be built on the building plots to collect and decompose the mines for recycling. Finally, the cleared plots were transformed into emerald mines, with some of the pits retained as post-war monumental landscapes and the rest filled in for farming. We have designed four key structures – control towers, rat rearing cages, mine storage depots and viewing platforms – linked by walkways so that visitors can see the complete process.

Some of the buildings can be moved and dismantled to facilitate quick access to the site to assist in the mechanism cycle; others cannot be moved and remain on the site as history to show people the hazards of mines and warfare in the past. The mechanism ends up using the monumental landscape to develop local tourism, introduce interactive planting, promote the local economy and raise funds to facilitate the mechanism cycle.

The proposal intends to help the residents of the Sino-Vietnamese border to get rid of the suffering caused by landmines and war and regain their lives through an innovative mechanism; to remove the restrictions of national borders, to make the friendship between the two peoples deeper, to inject new vitality into the development of China and Vietnam, to bring more possibilities to the border area and to open up a new development model.

‘Bridging Borders, Treasures of Wounds – A New System of Post-War Cross-Border Planting on the Sino-Vietnamese Border’

Dao Zhou – Kede College of Capital Normal University
Qiahan Liu – Wuhan Textile University
Xinying Wu – Southeast University
Jieyu Chen – University: Huizhou University

Supervisor: Jiawei Liang