View Unlimited Landscape Architects is affiliated to China Urban Construction Design & Research Academy Institute. Lead by landscape architect Xie Xiaoying, the studio mainly engages in scenic design, tourism area planning, public art project planning and portable application system development for public spaces. It aims to build cross-domain connections among designers, artists and engineers in different fields and subjects to make efforts in research and development of projects.

China is experiencing a critical era of rapid urbanization development and social lifestyle transformation. The overwhelmingly emphasizing on hardware and infrastructure construction has lead to a black hole of spiritual notion of modernity and lost of control and balance between ideology life and physical practical matters. Such chaos has infiltrated throughout our daily lives, nevertheless we could have been experiencing the best opportunities for contemporary landscape design practices. View Unlimited is keen to answer to the challenge of the present through continuous practices in urban and rural development landscape projects.

The mission of View Unlimited’s design strategies is based on sociology studies, with emphasizes on social structure movement and transformation. The team, with great sensitivity on present social problems and social development process, would focus on human-based living habitat environment and how behavior and individual psychological studies based on spacial experiences, then exercise with professional design strategies to improve the living conditions and sooth pressure.

As the team proposed an idea of “guardian of the gene of vitality”, projects of View Unlimited seek to be site specific and treasure the local intangible culture elements while devoting the concept of modern upgrades of spiritual heritages and using co-existence of multi-valued as a foundation in response to the excessive speeding of urban and rural development, and trying to answer to the calling of manifestation of spiritual return.

In terms of professional design strategies, View Unlimited values the most appropriate intervention methods in cross-domain design. It takes role as an invisible director in complicated projects and acts as a humble buffer that stimulates seamless collaboration between multi-stakeholders. View Unlimited encourages integrated design that establishes overall ecological landscape system that not only sustainably protect and develop existing natural resources, but also emphasize on traditional Chinese values. It exercises ecological restoration with professional domains, strives to mend the environment condition with concerns for not only human needs in terms of landscape design, but also for all animals and plants for a harmonic scheme. In consideration of space design, View Unlimited implements concepts that focus on dynamic, elastic and interactive experiences, with which effectively activate public vitalities and hence become important productivity force. With constant pursuit of seamless intervention, the studio ultimately carries out designs with sustainably way of lifestyles that would modify, restore and model a better ecological environment through resource integration.

Tangshan Phoenix Hill Park Renovation Landscape Design

Constructed in the 1960s, the Tangshan Phoenix Hill Park used to be recognized as a legacy of the declined industrialized era that is deprived from modern city lives. The landscape reconstruction project has preserved the existing residents’ lifestyle and commune habits while injecting fresh DNA into the site, to seamlessly merge the new lifestyles of interacting, inter-depending and innovating. While analyzing the original natural elements and cultural genes, the project has adopted the main concept of “threading” by opening up the existing walls to establish various connections and to provide organic linkage to modern urban lives, consequently rejuvenating and updating upon the old site.

Project location: Tangshan, Hebei Province (China)
Completion lear: 2008
Area: 370,000 m²
Photo credits: View Unlimited, Landscape Architects

Environmental renewal for Yangmeizhu Xiejie & Renovation plan and mixed-courtyard public space design for 66 – 76 Yangmeizhu Xiejie Laneway in Beijing

From 2012 View Unlimited had started the environmental renewal for Yangmeizhu Xiejie. The project, continued for 2 years, is a reconstruction scheme of the old street block. The team of View Unlimited has conducted interviews to communicate with each individual local resident family and shop owners about the renovation scheme. The project has combined has clarified and protected the historical cultural gene in the existing old Beijing streets.

After the completion of the environmental renewal project of Yangmeizhu Xiejie, in 2015 View Unlimited was invited to participate into a commonwealth project which involved reconstruction plan for a by-pass laneway of the street. The laneway is shared by five remaining households that have distinct daily lifestyles and needs.

Since the initiation of the project, View Unlimited team had carried out door to door interviews for one yea, Based on the result of the investigation the team had established the Flora Cottage, a communal project that encourages shared planting which aims to provide opportunities for shared contribution between residents. The Flora Cottage emphasizes on providing a friendly buffer zone and to generate a sense of home and belonging among the residents.

An extension project by the team called “HOME: Communal Garden” is a large multimedia art installation is selected to be exhibited in the 15 ͭ ͪ International Architecture Exhibition in La Biennale di Venezia, 2016.

In 2016, the studio had hosted activities of interactive planting at the Flora Cottage, the Laneway and Yangmeizhu Xiejie Local Resident Planting Exhibition will be held during the Beijing Design Week in October.

Project location: Yangmeizhu Xiejie at Dashilan Area, Beijing (China)
Year of Construction:2012-2014 & 2015-
Area: 6,000 m² & 120 m²
Photo credits: View Unlimited, Landscape Architects

Landscape Design for Guquan Conference Center (Beijing CITIC Jingling Hotel)

The project sites in the suburban area of Beijing, the main architecture design rests against the slope of a mountain and overlooks a lake. The hotel buildings are consisted of three parts, the gym and amenities at the foot of the hill, the main building(s) at the mountainside and the superior suites at the top of the mountain, with an overall area of over 5 hectares and landscape design over 10 hectares.

During the construction of the buildings there had been an extensive excavation of the main hill and caused a certain level of damage to the natural environment and the mountain. View Unlimited proposed a scheme which maximize the restoration of the mountain with respect of the existing site environment, while enhancing the connection between nature and architecture. The landscape design seeks a unified design that combines ecological restoration and artificial landscaping that emphasizes on poetic “Shan Shui” atmosphere with Chinese characteristics. Water from reservoir was drawn into the existing depressions to form an inner lake and maximize the surface of the waterscape, and landscape design principle is merged into the functional architectural elements such as the emergency staircase, retaining walls, platforms and courtyards.

The landscape design strives to mend and restore the ecological environment while establishing a harmonic relationship between nature and architecture. Preserved building materials are utilized, such as the gabion walls are filled with aggregates from mountain rock then added climbing plants and grass seeds to construct green retaining walls. Local vegetations are used to establish appropriate plant habitat and existing bushes are protected and preserved while encouraging the growth of existing wild rock plants in the field. The result is a natural seasonal landscape design with maximize environmental concern and collaboration of architectural design.

Architects: Kai Cui Studio
Project location: Pinggu County, Beijing (China)
Date Completed:2015.7
Area: 100,000 m²
Photo credits: Yijun Geng

Urban landscape planning and park design for Tianjin Jiefang South Road

Jiefang South Road district sites at the main axis of Tianjin, as a vital area of interconnection between the main city center and the satellite CBD, the zoning plan is changed from industrial to a mixture of residential and commercial. View Unlimited has conducted a project of urban landscape planning with conceptual design for the central green axis and park design for the start-up zone, within which the gateway park design of the southern end of the green axis has been completed in 2014.

The landscape design and urban planning follows the guideline of integrated planning that emphasize on multifunction and cross-realm collaboration. By organically combining the public city greenland, urban infrastructure and public services facilities, the project seeks maximizing the efficiency of resource usage and consequently solving urban problems by integrated design and healthy, sustainably lifestyle.

Based on the belt-like feature of the green axis garden, multiple pathways – including ecological path, city activity path and casual green path – are combined into one, making the park “dissolved” into the city. The park utilizes environmental sustainable design strategies to create a comfortable, user-friendly and interesting outdoor activity zone. By linking urban culture and city life together, the central park at green axis is a public space with sense of belonging, leading a new green lifestyle while encourage public activities such as multi-cultural creative gatherings, fitness exercise, environmental-friendly activities and so on.

Project location: Tianjin (China)
Design Year:2011-2012/2015
Year of Construction: 2013-2014
Area:1,000,000m²
Photo credits: View Unlimited, Landscape Architects

Site is productivity – Landscape Design for China Xiamen Xiang’an International Airport

View Unlimited started the project of landscape design for China Xiamen Xiang’an International Airport in 2015. The airport functions not only as a main transportation hub, but a new civil activity center, featuring a GTC (Global Translator Community) hall. Outside the GTC is a 7 hectare garden consists of two parts: Refreshing Valley and Green Core. The site constitutes elastic and compound functions such as welcoming or farewell gathering, outdoor wedding, business conferences and public art exhibition. The landscape design strives to accommodate USB-like function and maximize the usage of the potential site by integrating designs with the airport services, linking the virtual and reality spaces with mobile internet devices and creating new consumption model and hence economical benefits. The landscape design aims to achieve one of our main concepts in the schemes: Site is productivity.

The landscape design of the roof of the airport is also tightly connected to the economic effects. The over 5 hectare roof of the GTC parking building is designed to be the colorful flowerfield as a landmark while overlooking Xiamen city in the sky; meanwhile, as a flowerfield with productivity it serves as the source of the fresh flower support for the airport, providing resources to the airport landscape design and encouraging tourists and travelers to closely experience the intimate and unique garden city. A new production link is hence established and landscape design is transformed into productivity with economic benefits to the airport site.

Project location: Xiang’ an District ,Amoy (Xiamen), China
Area:24ha
Design Year :2015
Photo credits: View Unlimited, Landscape Architects

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