Tangshan La V-onderland Shadow Play Park is located in the Nanhu Eco-tourism Attraction, which acts as the “City Living Room” in Tangshan. Phase I of this project covers an area of about 131,000 square meters and opened to the public in October 2018; phase II covers an area of about 350,000 square meters and opened in May 2019. There are more than 30 CyberStar destinations, such as Rotating Shadow Puppet, Giant Shadow Puppet, Shadow Puppet Theater, Black Forest, Low-carbon Life Pavilion, Bubble Park, Water Park, Rain Garden, etc., as well as more than 120 special landscape facilities for children.
Nanhu Eco-tourism Attraction was once a coal mining settlement with a harsh ecological environment. After years of unremitting treatment, Nanhu has become a model of urban renewal in Tangshan, turning Tangshan from the industrial-oriented into the cultural-tourism-oriented city. That WHE held in the Nanhu Eco-tourism Attraction was an opportunity to show the results of Tangshan’s post-earthquake reconstruction and ecological management. Since then, Tangshan has unfolded the “Post-WHE Era”. In 2018, as the trend of “culture & tourism integration” started in China, it was urgent to renovate WHE’s old site of children’s park.
How to empower the culture and tourism functions to this project through creativity and design? It is the challenges in this project.
After an in-depth investigation in the local area, the team got inspiration from the ancient Chinese traditional art—shadow puppetry. They made it a new interpretation according to contemporary aesthetic concepts and ideas. Therefore, starting from the design concept of “dancing shadow puppets, marching Tangshan City”, the park is not only based on local culture, but also serving for the future and the world. Shadow puppets were introduced as the main theme to visually connect the entire landscaping area, amusement facilities, architectures, artworks, IP images, and derivative cultural creations together, changing the public’s stereotype of shadow puppets, turning this intangible culture heritage from a single “output mode” into an “interactive experience”, so that it can truly step into our daily life.
The design team independently developed, designed and customized most of the amusement facilities in the park, even guided the whole process of product control, infrastructure embedding, installation and debugging, etc., altogether producing and integrating about 100 pieces of equipment.
Among them, the large-scale structure “Giant Shadow Puppet” is the core recreation facility originally developed by the park. It is about 50 meters wide and 20 meters high at the top point, consisting of a large platform and two high towers. The climbing facilities, slides and other installations are well combined with shadow puppet art, integrating amusement, interaction, and shadow puppet culture into a multi-dimensional entertainment experience for visitors. The inside and outside of this Giant are both recreational and ornamental, allowing visitors to experience sensory stimulation and appreciate the shadow puppet art while playing.
Shadow puppet inheritors were specially invited to select the world’s representative shadow puppet image for “Shadow Puppet Theater”. By enclosing weathering steel plates through artistic treatment, they created a wonderful stage for the world shadow puppet exhibition. When the light-emitting control switch on the ground being stepped, each shadow puppet would play its regional characteristic music while changing its color, on the whole forming a sound and light interactive shadow puppet theater. In addition, the Low-carbon Life Pavilion and Rain Garden in the park are edutainment venues allowing children to experience the power of nature while having fun, cultivating them environmental protection concepts.
Tangshan La V-onderland Shadow Play Park is a meaningful process of exploring and completing the cultural tourism practice in Tangshan during the “Post-WHE Era”. This is China’s first non-powered parent-child park with intangible cultural heritage shadow puppets as the theme. It effectively extends the original concept of “low-carbon and environmental protection” to create an interesting, educational and challenging large-scale comprehensive themed park for family entertainment, study and additional activities.
Due to the COVID-19 epidemic, tourism industry faced a severe crisis in 2020, but Tangshan La V-onderland Shadow Play Park has made outstanding contributions on it. In the process of helping the tourism industry itself, the park has been innovating and seeking changes. Its passenger flow has achieved a reversed growth and the highest single-day revenue reached 500,000 RMB. In 2020, the tourist attendance has reached 300,000. It has become the largest low-carbon, environmentally friendly and non-powered park in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region.
Other landscape architecture offices involved in the design of landscape:
Hardscape offices:
Henan Sanyuan Decoration Design Engineering Co., Ltd
Quyang Xingchuang Landscape Sculpture Co., Ltd
Beijing Xingtao Technology Development Co., Ltd
Design year:2018
Year Built:2019
