Nanyang City, with its long and profound history and culture, is an important birthplace of the Chu-Han culture and is located in central China with abundant agricultural resources. Human beings get the nourishment to continue their lives from the fertile soil of the fields, and the designers used ‘Thousands of miles of fertile field’ as the design concept to create the landscape of the square. Regarding the fertile fields, the landscape design mainly embodies the concept of abstracting the plots and colors of the fields into squares as seen from a bird’s eye view.
The intersecting lines between each field are utilized in the square installation, recreation area and so on. The overall shape reflects the endlessness of the fertile field, but at the same time, there are outdoor recreation areas, and flower ponds, just as people get nourishment for the land, visitors can have various activities in this place.
The three-dimensional lines in gray and green and the field-like flower ponds form the square, which is the transitional space between the city and the landscape. The designers extracted the horizonal and vertical lines formed between the field plots, and added more parallel lines to make two styles of square sculpture. Taupe color symbolizes the earth while green color symbolizes the cultivated plants. These two contrasting colors are organically combined by the designers in the sculpture. Combined with the site conditions around the square and the sculpture as the entrance to the center, the designers wanted to make different attempts from the social aspect as well as the display aspect - an upright nineteen-meter landscape sculpture was erected on the south side of the square, which plays a good role in guiding the city park on the opposite side of the road; and on the north side of the square, which is the main entrance of the shopping center, the designers made the sculpture "lie down" and adjusted the height to the state of people's daily activities, bringing the sculpture closer to the social relationship, hoping that people can take pictures and make a souvenir. When people pass by the horizontal sculpture, they will not feel too high and oppressed, thus bringing the interaction between people and the installation closer.
The land that has been cultivated by human beings usually shows regular and neat lines and geometrical shapes, so the designers have incorporated these regular patterns into the design of flower ponds. Customized street lights surround the field-like flower ponds, combined with seating for pedestrians to rest, creating a sense of visualization and relaxation in the space of staggered heights.
In addition, the color combination of the square floor tiles continues the concept of ‘Thousands of miles of fertile field’, with different shades of grey as in the aerial view of the fields with various crops. The arrangement of the tiles and the direction of the flower ponds form interlocking lines, visually spreading out in all directions, echoing the endlessness of the fields.
The square is the excessive space between the city and the landscape, and the designers intended to lead the busy minds in the city to take a rest here, temporarily withdrawing from the noisy and crowed urban life.