Revitalizing Nature: Guiyang's New Community Park

Resilient Design Meets Traditional Construction in Hu Sun's Award-Winning Landscape

The Guiyang New Community Park is located adjacent to the Laoma River, amidst undulating karst hills. Once a typical Asian landscape featuring green mountains, terraces, and blue rivers with sampan fishing boats, the area has recently transformed into a bustling urban district. Hu Sun's design objective was to preserve and emphasize the existing landscape character while providing attractions to foster a connection between humans and nature.

The park stands out for its novel solution to community park design. It showcases a resilient design with minimal intervention, respecting the site and highlighting the local karst geography and former land use. The park successfully integrates a program of leisure activities for the public with the preservation of karst landscape formations and a waterfront design to support dynamic hydrological processes.

One of the unique aspects of this project is its realization technology. The interventions on site were kept to a minimum, and the existing habitat was widely preserved. Most of the trees and ground covers were retained and integrated into the new design. By addressing soil stability and site reconstruction, the designers also fell back on traditional construction methods and reintroduced farming terraces. Low dry walls were partly repaired and built with local limestone rocks to protect and reinforce the land adjacent to the flood zone.

Despite the challenges posed by the karst topology and proximity to the Laoma river, the design team managed to overcome them through innovative strategies. The site's elevation difference of 45 meters, the slopes inclined towards the river suffering erosion, and the seasonal floods and changing water levels of up to 5 meters were all taken into account. The designers developed strategies of low intervention, traditional construction, and resilient design to address these issues.

The Guiyang New Community Park is a shining example of how innovative design can respect and enhance natural landscapes. It is a testament to the power of resilient design and traditional construction methods in creating a space that not only serves the community but also preserves and highlights the beauty of the natural environment. The park's success is a testament to Hu Sun and his team's skill and creativity, earning them a well-deserved Silver A' Design Award.