Jingkai Central Park locates at the heart of Nanchang’s Economic and Technological Development District, north of the city center. The park serves as a transit hub for the city’s Changbei National Airport, the International Wharf, and Ganjiang New District. Therefore, as the pivot point for the practical and cultural lives in Nanchang, the park represents the identity of the city. Jingkai Central Park is the keystone of the Garden City of Nanchang, which planned urban development with “a green space every 300 meters and a garden every 500 meters”. This will combine architectural and urban construction together.
BREAKING THE INTELLECTUAL BOUNDARIES: NEW DEVELOPMENTAL METHODS OF SUSTAINABLE PARKS
Rapid urbanization in China over several decades has resulted in the evolution of methods of real estate development. The “Garden City” theory, in which commercial and residential districts are surrounded by parks, has now become the paradigm of city building. Jingkai Central Park is the first step towards such new development methods. The project was designed to be a co-development process. This co-development allows to maximize the usage and collaboration of resources and ignites awareness and excitement of nature. Through the integration of infrastructure, landscape and urban public spaces, the Central Park reconstructs the site’s layout for the originally chaotic green space. As the first phase of the masterplan, Central Park is an epitome of the entire planned district and a rehearsal for the variegated communal lives of the neighborhood. It is expected to connect real-estate development and city planning and establish a win-win scenario in space, time, and sustainability.
The “Heart of Jingkai,” the library at the center of the park, is a physical realization of the above scenario. In order to meet the spatial needs of the present and the future for both the developer and the residents, the building is now a commercial sales office, attracting residents to settle in; in the future, it will turn into an urban library, transitioning between the natural and the humanistic. With this multi-functional design, the building is a landmark on-site, which extends the function of landscapes and architecture and reduces construction cost.
COMBINING COMMUNITY AND NATURE THROUGH THE CIRCULATION
Prior to the appropriation, the site was not well organized, with fallen trees across the land. Therefore the reorganization of the layout and a hierarchy to the development processes are the priorities. By uniting and dismantling, the design unifies the architecture into the natural environment through a series of curve and circle patterns, representing the softness of nature and structural stability of the built, which is also juxtaposed to the masculine silhouette of the surrounding commercial buildings.
Spread out from a central point, the spiral pathways extend a holistic geometry of the circles and return “civilization” and “anthropogenic trajectories” back to nature through the engagement of people into the environment. Meanwhile, the height differences created by little hills and valleys resemble our inherent tendency to coexist and to progress with nature. Jingkai Central Park is the wonderland for a midsummer’s night dream.
EARTHWORK INTEGRATION SOLVING ECOLOGICAL PROBLEMS
The park digests construction earthworks in situ by layering the original site and utilizing the landfills produced on the surrounding commercial construction sites reasonably. This process reduces transportation and creates an oscillating landscape environment. The advantages of the new method of sustainable parks lay upon a collaboration between neighboring construction and the application of excess earthwork produced, which balances consumption and production. Therefore, the design can solve environmental problems in ecological ways.
A WONDERLAND OF CHILDREN IN THE MEMORIES OF THE PINK MUHLY GRASS
The park satisfies the needs of various people through a series of infrastructures, including children’s playgrounds, lawns, pathways, and rest zones. The lives of the residents have therefore been improved because the park provides them a place to rest, exercise, and socialize. The circulative spaces encourage kids to take adventures between nature and infrastructure. Interactive installations are placed all around the park, which turn all unexpected corners into places of wonder and curiosity, inviting the users to perceive, experience, and reflect. The park presents a fairytale for kids, where surprise and excitement encounter.
In addition, the water pond resembles fluids through a series of parametric modeling which mimics the movement of water over lands and simulates a vivid landscaping experience.
THE RAIN GARDEN
The pavement mainly uses permeable materials such as bamboo flooring, permeable bricks, permeable concrete, and grass bricks. This fully utilizes the capacity of the materials to regulate and control surface water naturally without excess human interactions. The design of an “ecological sponge” brings together a rain park, directing the water into a filtered layer of pavements and green belt, which eventually joins into the green spaces.
NEW PARK TYPOLOGY CONSTANTLY CHANGES URBAN LIFE
Nanchang Jingkai Central Park is a centralized park in an area of massive building development, which strengthens the spatial importance of urban green spaces. Due to the accelerated development of China, the quality of infrastructure and the attention to ecological sustainability were reducing over time. However, the designed park is to revoke this unfortunate trend meanwhile to provide a solution to the current loss. Earthwork integration, transportation plan, commercial and real-estate development can happen at the same pace and with the growth of a community demographically and environmentally. Through several landscape designing strategies, the park fulfills the needs of various stakeholders and proposes a new adaptive organizational system. As a result, Jingkai Central Park realizes this dream of a “Garden City” with scientific, ecological principles and high-quality environmental products.
Project Architect: Xiaochen Ma
Project Team: Hu Sun, Xiaochen Ma, Yu Wang, Ni Yang, Huidi Wang, Bowen Zuo, Zixuan Cheng, Zhi Li
Architecture offices involved in the design: The Coast Palisade Consulting Group（THE C.P.C. GROUP）
Construction Company: Hubei Huang Jia Landscape Co.LTD
Client: CIFI Holdings (Group) Co. LTD
Project location: Jingkai District, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province
Design year: 2020
Year Built: 2020
Photo Credits: PRISM Architectural Geography; Bowen Zuo
