Winner of the Editors Award in the 2022 WLA Awards. Editors comment: “Streets are often underutilised in cities. This project shows that a lively street can be created through “urban acupuncture” and take full advantage of the streetscape and underutilised adjacent spaces to create multi-generational places for all to enjoy.”
Beijing’s Xihongmen has a long history. The nearly 3km-long Xihongmen Venture Street is an important central thoroughfare in Xihongmen town. From the early days as a thoroughfare for traffic, it has become a thoroughfare for living. From the initial focus on motorised traffic, it has now evolved to focus on the pedestrian experience and the connectivity of accessible spaces. The street has changed from its original commercial atmosphere to now concentrate on renewing public spaces and creating child-friendly spaces. Venture Street is an important traffic avenue and commercial centre in the area and the axis of residents’ life, the vitality centre of the community, and the carrier of residents’ memories.
With the changes in the social environment, the traditional commercial-based street space has been unable to meet the diverse needs of residents for a better life. Therefore, creating a “people-oriented, public service” urban shared space has become an inevitable choice to adapt to the development of the times. Therefore, the core content of the project improvement is to carry the memory of the times and expand the needs of residents, reshape the vitality of the community and bring the streets back to life.
Infiltrate the urban renewal strategy into every corner of the street and tap the potential of idle space. Through road renewal, street traffic is more reasonable, and the slow-moving system is improved; Through the expansion of idle space, the street space will be more diverse, and the urban life of community residents will be richer; Through the improvement of the street interface, the facade elements are more characteristic of the times, and the space facade becomes more active; Through the modular design, the space combination is more flexible and has better expansion in the future; Through the participation of citizens, each space is more meaningful, and the sense of identity and happiness of citizens is more real.
Urban renewal and the construction of a child-friendly society have become the main strategic direction of social development. Under the condition of limited capital, Venture Street has maximized social benefits. In the aspect of renewal and transformation, we can say that we have gained more practical experiences and directions.
The upgrading and reconstruction of the Venture Street, which lasted for two years, has received extensive attention from all walks of life. The final implementation of the project reflects a positive social atmosphere of “national participation”. Although the project was promoted during the COVID-19 pandemic period, the impact of construction on residents’ daily life was fully reduced by the reasonable arrangement of construction timing. Furthermore, the overall project got positive comments from the government and community residents. We believe that the open space created by an updated entrepreneurship street can bring people more sense of security, more positive impact and more colorful life, which really help the street return to life.
Environmental Renovation of Xihongmen Venture Street
Landscape Architect: L&A Design
Director of landscape Architect: Baozhang Li, Zhen Zhao, Guangyi Xiu, Tongyu Jia
Project manager: Tongyu Jia, Wen Zhao, Xi Zhang
Landscape Architect: Yanni Pan, Hongkai Wei, Xuan Du, Wenting Wu, Kunyuan Ji, Weiquan Wang, Shuyan Zhang, Wen Liu, Yanbo Li, Wenchao Zhang, Li Zhang, Hao Zhu, Xiaolu Song, Junyu Pang, Lijuan Song, Shubao Han, Zheng Yang, Yingying Tan, Siyu Li, Zongwen Huang
Planting Designer: Peng Hou
Equipment Designer: Chengyu Sun, Haobo Su, Wenhui Yang
Photographer: Tuanwei Lu
Client: Xihongmen Township People’s Government of Daxing District of Beijing Municipality