Located in the Guangming District of Shenzhen, China, the project aims to enhance the surrounding urban environment and improve the urban landscape by systematically upgrading urban arterial roads and public green space. The design will meet the surrounding residents’ daily leisure and fitness needs and promote an international high-quality public service support area in Guangming Science City. The project’s total area is 222,800 square meters. About 81,000 square meters are for municipal road upgrading, 79,000 square meters for riverfront landscape upgrading, and 62,800 square meters for scattered plots. Due to its location and proximity to the seventh affiliated hospital, Sun Yat-Sen University, the riverfront landscape will become a high-quality, barrier-free public ecological landscape demonstration site.
The project site is located at the mouth of the three forks of the Xinbeitou River, the largest tributary of the Maozhou River. Also, the project site is about 3 km from the upstream reservoir, so the river channel needs to meet the needs of water conservancy and flood discharge. However, it has pretty severe problems nowadays. The original river channel of Xinbeitou River is silted up, with no diversion of rainwater and sewage, and the water quality is turbid. Due to the need for flood discharge, the water level varies significantly, and the embankment was overgrown with weeds, resulting in a poor ecological environment. The original water conservation design did not consider the user needs, with no landscape treatment and pedestrian paths on both banks, resulting in poor interaction between users and the site.
As the lead, the landscape architecture design group combined with water conservancy, bridge, ecology, municipal, and other multi-disciplinary groups carried out a comprehensive transformation and upgrading of the Xinbeitou River. Under the premise of ensuring water safety, the design implements the sponge city concept. Based on the original site condition, design strategies adopt ecological restoration, river source treatment, and desilting and dredging for overall enhancement.
A new access bridge, Joy Bridge, has been constructed over the river, connecting two crucial urban spaces on both sides of the river, the Seventh Hospital Affiliated Hospital and Joy Field. The striking bridge greatly enriches the vertical space of the site, creating a distinctive landscape that complements above and below the bridge.
The design contributes a good foundation for planning the Guangdong Province’s Ten Thousand Green Road. It breaks down the boundaries between people, nature, and rivers, reconnecting them and creating a beautiful waterfront recreational space with clear water and green banks.
Revitalizing the Landscape near Sun Yat-Sen University
Landscape Architect: L&A Design
Lead Landscape Designer: Baozhang Li, Guangyi Xiu
Project manager: Yanfen He, Si Gou, Miaoxuan Liu
Landscape Designer: Xuan Du, Yanjian Wei, Haijun Tang,Xu Fan, Wenchun Huang
Planting Designer: Yi Tong, Yaoyao Liu
Client: Shenzhen Guangming District Urban Management And Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau
Photographer: Tao Lin
