Revitalizing Suzhou's Taiping Ancient Town: A Blend of Culture, History, and Innovation

Yun Du's Award-Winning Urban Design Project, Cultural Soul, Breathes New Life into an Ancient Town

Yun Du's Cultural Soul project was inspired by the rich cultural and creative industry of Suzhou, with a focus on characteristic culture and life culture. The project aimed to create a unique town that blends a rich living atmosphere, folk customs, tourism, and industry. The result is a town that not only embraces characteristic industries but also provides the public with a unique destination for leisure, entertainment, and touring.

The uniqueness of the Cultural Soul project lies in its ability to inherit history while creating the future. The transformation of Taiping Book Town has launched new vitality, creating a complex town equipped with a two-wheel drive that is dominated by ancient town tourism and cultural and creative industry. This special town is perfect for working, touring, living, and innovating.

The design introduces book culture as the soul and New Economy concept of human experience and the ancient town tourism. This has become an important means of urban repair, ecological restoration, and industrial repair with innovations in form, industry composition, and operation mode. The project uses water as the interface to generate multiple sections, echoing the village mode of Sleeping on Water in Taiping Book Town, and providing complete functions of Working, Living, Touring.

One of the challenges faced during the project was the competition set by similar areas around Taiping Ancient Town. There are many tourist towns around Suzhou, which had a certain impact on the formation of Taiping Ancient Town. This required Taiping Ancient Town to be different from other ancient towns in planning and positioning. Another challenge was the implementation. As the construction of Taiping Ancient Town had been in disrepair for a long time, the environmental quality had not been well protected. Future development and implementation also posed difficulties.

Despite these challenges, the Cultural Soul project was a success, earning Yun Du the Golden A' City Planning and Urban Design Award in 2019. This award is granted to marvelous, outstanding, and trendsetting creations that reflect the designer's prodigy and wisdom. They are venerated products and bright ideas that advance art, science, design, and technology, embodying extraordinary excellence and significantly impacting the world with their desirable characteristics.

With the Cultural Soul project, Yun Du has set a new standard for urban design, proving that it is possible to blend culture, history, and innovation in a way that revitalizes an ancient town and breathes new life into it. This project serves as an inspiration for future urban design projects, demonstrating the power of design in transforming spaces and creating unique experiences.