Beijing Changping New Town Business Center District

Project Profile

The plan identifies its positioning as a central recreational commercial district based on its location, natural, and social endowments. Centered around this functional positioning, it adopts a "counter-planning" approach, proposing that urban design should focus on ecological and humanistic urban concepts, reflected in the following aspects:

1. Utilizing Natural Conditions: Fully leveraging the site's and nearby natural conditions, the plan creates waterfront recreational spaces by building an inner lake, raising the water level, and interweaving the water city. This includes constructing waterfront urban terraces and sky galleries.

2. Urban Green Valley: By sinking the streets in the core area, an urban green valley is formed, creating a microclimate that is warm in winter and cool in summer. This integrates with the waterfront area through multi-dimensional traffic solutions, creating a pedestrian-friendly leisure commercial environment.

3. Courtyard Building Layout: The layout uses courtyard-style buildings to create pleasant spaces and a favorable microclimate.

4. Pedestrian Greenway Network: The plan breaks the conventional practice of building setbacks by establishing pedestrian greenways that traverse the plots, forming an urban pedestrian greenway network. This network is organically integrated with the public transportation system, creating a green transportation network.

Through specific cases, the article presents a series of urban design concepts such as establishing a "city-water" relationship by coexisting with floods, "counter riverside roads," landscape urbanism, low-carbon cities, and correcting the building setback control regulations.

Note: In July 2008, the People's Government of Changping District organized a global bidding process for the urban design of the "Business Center District of the Eastern New Area of the New Town," and the scheme by Turenscape won first place.