The project is located in the main urban area of Chengdu, close to the Broad and Narrow Alley tourist attraction. The street space was originally an area with rich flavor of life. However, due to the surge in motor vehicles, it has become hard to see such interesting activities in the streets of the Shaocheng urban section. We hope to reactivate the human settlement environment, culture and economy here through effective urban renewal measures.
The project team takes "bringing residents back to the street life" as its original intention, and proposes a subversive, landscape-driven approach. The project focuses on the new and old citizens, while creating an effective community building cooperation mechanism, and taking into account the shaping of the traditional cultural atmosphere.
The project has successfully set up the "Wide Gate Community Workshop", a communication and interaction platform among the government, the public, enterprises and individuals in Shaocheng urban section, in a bid to promote public participation in the organic renewal of the community. Given that the surrounding communities are populated with elderly people and have schools, the team has sorted and integrated the plot into an open space system to provide supporting service facilities to meet the needs of different groups of people. In addition, it has considered the use of the street in different periods, such as ensuring the flexibility of the street space with mobile flower boxes, so that the street has ample room to carry out safe celebrations during holidays. By organizing four streets into one-way traffic, it has formed four internal micro-circulation traffic circles. It has remapped the parking system to reduce roadside parking occupation, and taken measures to increase non-motorized lanes, reduce the kerb radius, set up street safety islands, increase the density of zebra crossings, and establish a slow traffic system to guarantee the right of way for pedestrians and non-motor vehicles.
The Shaocheng urban section has a long history dating back to the Qin Dynasty. The team puts forward the concept of "pan-history museum". It has set up various cultural carriers in the community, so that each street has its own story, and forms a cultural and historical network. Incorporating the aesthetics and practicality of traditional Chinese culture, the team creatively reproduces the scenes with Chinese classical charms in material application and space processing. It shows the flexibility and versatility of traditional materials such as bricks and tiles, and creates classical garden artistic conception with more than 50 kinds of plants.
This is a bold attempt to have citizens widely participate in the renewal and construction, showing the catalytic role of the landscape in the process of promoting community rejuvenation, and enabling Chengdu citizens and tourists to get a safer and more dynamic block slow life.