“After School” Pine Woods Park by Office Fuli

The project is located in the urban area of Xianning City, Hubei Province, China. The site features a small hill covered with Masson pine trees, spanning approximately 16,790 square meters. To the north lies Fushan New Village, to the south a comprehensive campus with elementary and junior high schools, and to the west high-rise residential complexes and commercial streets. The park’s central hill, covered by Masson pines, bridges the shared spaces of Fushan New Village’s villagers, a nearby school, and surrounding high-rise residents. Local authorities envisioned a park that would activate community connections and provide a space for rest, play, and social interaction.

To address the site’s three-meter elevation change, we created gradually ascending plazas and playground fields on the southwest side. Recycled concrete and brick fragments were encased in wire mesh to form gabion retaining walls, while terraced resting platforms were installed along the hillside at the two main entrances, leveraging elevation variations to create visual and movement interactions. Our design aims to maximize inclusivity for the surrounding communities and school. This means ensuring accessibility for people of all ages and backgrounds, creating a natural gathering space that is welcoming and easy to approach amid the bustling city. Thoughtfully placed wheelchair ramps provide safe and diverse recreational opportunities for all citizens while enabling wheelchair users to explore most areas with ease.

The hill, including the pine trees, is cherished by local villagers, who have insisted that no pine trees be cut down during the park’s design and construction. Since tree removal was intended to be avoided, pre-planning paths through the forest on paper proved inefficient without accurate mapping of each tree. Instead, we adapted to the site, marking routes on the ground with the construction team using white chalk powder, then adjusting slopes to ensure manageable gradients. The resulting path layout carries a playful spontaneity. Inside the pine grove, scattered patches of gravel and natural earth paving avoid rigid pathways, enhancing the sense of wandering and exploration. Low linear walls trace the hill’s contours, their pale lines flickering through the trees to subtly guide movement. The natural Masson pine forest is vulnerable to pine wilt disease, so we introduced young native mixed pine species to diversify the tree composition, boosting biodiversity and strengthening the forest’s resilience against pests and disasters.

Here, we’ve created a fun, inclusive, and open natural public space that fosters interaction among all users. By working with existing resources—preserving nearly all the pines and leveraging the original topography—we’ve delivered a sustainable, exploratory park for the community. Since its completion, the park has been enthusiastically embraced by villagers, high-rise residents, and students, buzzing with activity after school hours. Beyond physically connecting two neighborhoods, this new public space has also fostered positive interactions between villagers and urban dwellers.

• Other landscape architecture offices involved in the design of the landscape:
Hubei Ganchuan Landscape Design Institute

• Other credits:
Yinxi Lu
Yifan Wang
Construction team: Hubei Xianggu Ecological Environment Co., Ltd.