Landscape Information
Designed by Turenscape and its founder, Kongjian Yu in 2000, this approximately 27-acre park is nestled between the eastern bank of the tidal Qijang River and the prominent curve of a six-lane highway. The park occupies a former brownfield, utilized as a shipyard from 1950 to 1999, and features a biomorphic lake connected to the river, repurposed industrial artifacts, intersecting linear walkways, grids and bosques that seem to float in the landscape, and sculptural features. By revealing and adapting industrial era traces, including structures, docks, and machinery, the design honors the site’s twentieth century industrial cultural heritage. Unbound by a perimeter fence or wall, the park is porous, providing freedom of movement for its neighbors with myriad perimeter entrances that connect to walkways that diagonally crisscross and radiate throughout the park.
Accessed along its northern and northwestern edges, linear paths, including an adapted railroad track, pass through gridded bosques of palm trees and lawns interspersed with canopy trees and distinct sculptural features, including a minimalist, gridded matrix of metal poles and trimmed fiscus hedgerows. The hedges reference former on-site dormitories and form partially enclosed outdoor rooms, affording visitors seclusion. As one path passes through a simple, metal, roofless structure painted red, it bifurcates, exiting through separate doors, each positioned on axis with two repurposed water towers.
The northern shore of the lake features two steel skeletons of former dock structures, painted white and orange respectively, and its eastern side is occupied by a tea house painted blue. A network of linear bridges and paths surround the water feature, each established at different elevations to accommodate fluctuating water levels and afford visitors a range of viewing opportunities. The water’s edge is terraced and planted with native, flood tolerant species. A linear island occupies the river, parallel to the shore, and features ten, mature banyan trees. The project received the American Society of Landscape Architects’ Honor Award in 2002.
