The municipality of Hengyang, Hunan Province, China, chose ADEPT as winners of the planning competition of the 17KM2 site of Laiyan New Town and Binjian District in Hengyang.
The translated quote from the Hengyang municipality: "Green Loops City concept developed by the Danish architectural firm ADEPT provided the best and most suitable planning proposal for Hengyang by capturing its unique cultural heritage using a sustainable planning method. Experts from the most prestigious universities and organizations in China voted in favor of the ADEPT proposal.
The mayor of the city stressed the importance of the future for this area, and emphasized the need to create a new city able to offer commercial, culture, tourism and leisure.” Hengyang is a city of many cultural artifacts with pagodas, a library, and an academy making up an impressive list of historical buildings in the Laiyan new town and Binjian District of Hengyang. Set within the background of these buildings is the beautiful nature of Hengyang with farmlands, mountains, wetlands, and rivers that have been all preserved until now.
As Hengyang goes through rapid urban development and requires the need for new sub-cities to expand beyond the old town area, can we consider a sustainable urban development for the city that can preserve its natural and cultural qualities? Is it possible to preserve nature while at the same time expand the city? Using a sustainable approach to planning cities, we have set up 8 principles to guide the design of the city.
Designing sustainable transportation, creating a denser urban network, maintaining cultural heritage, developing new and existing communities, implementing a denser urban life, preserving and enhancing the natural landscape, creating new ecological system using existing water networks, and connecting to surrounding neighborhoods. The urban principles are about creating a living strategy for development that could create a better future for Hengyang and the inhabitants of the city.
Combining the strategies of the 8 principles into a bigger concept, “Green Loops City” attempts to link Hengyang’s unique characteristics, the landscape, the water, history, and culture, by creating important public spaces that are linked together. The green loops allow visitors to tour the special places in Hengyang while creating a more diverse city for locals to live. Each individual loop focus on a particular theme relating to the advantages of each area.
Culture, Old Residential, Sports, New Residential, Sub-Cbd Office, Sub-Cbd Residential, Water shore Residential, Industrial Park, Mountain Residential, Rail tracks, Eco Residential, Resort, Preserved Park are the different loops attempting to link and solve the problems that exist on the site. The Culture loop attempts to connect the most important cultural buildings, pagoda, library, along with new bar street, restaurant street, to make a better connection, and bring more activity to the area.
The Sports loop takes advantage of the natural river conditions in the area to create more enjoyable natural area to do sports, while also forming an important axis with the pagoda building. The Sub-Cbd loop creates a new way of working in the city, combining water canals, restaurants, shopping all in a convenient location with the new BRT route.
While each of the loops work individually, together the loops can form a larger green network -“Green Loops City” - that can connect all the different parts of the city allowing visitors and locals to use. Connected together, pedestrians, and bicyclist can easily traverse through the city to visit each area.
Aidi Su from ADEPT says: “Much of Hengyang’s cultural and natural resources are still very much intact when compared to other Chinese cities facing rapid urban development. This is an incredible opportunity for us to make a difference in Chinese cities.”
