New 'future city' to rise in southwest China
Credit: Courtesy of OMA
New 'future city' to rise in southwest China
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A
new "future city" is set to spring up in southwest China, featuring an
urban design intended to combine industry and technology with the
pastoral beauty of the countryside.
The
4.6-square-kilometer (1.8-square-mile) site outside Chengdu, the
capital of Sichuan province, will be home to multiple new universities,
laboratories and offices, according to the architectural firms behind
the project, Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) and Gerkan, Marg
& Partners (GMP).
Known
as Chengdu Future Science and Technology City, the project was unveiled
last week via a series of digital renderings. The development is being
built in a rural area close to the forthcoming Tianfu International
Airport, which is set to open later this year and will make Chengdu only
the third Chinese city, after Beijing and Shanghai, to be served by two
international airports.
OMA's
design for the educational park features curvilnear buildings with
green terraces that complement the topography of the hilly landscape. Credit: Courtesy of OMA
OMA,
which designed Beijing's eye-catching CCTV Headquarters nearly a decade
ago, is responsible for a 460,000 square meter (nearly
5-million-square-foot) section of the new city, home to various
educational facilities, known as the International Educational Park
(IEP). GMP, meanwhile, will lead the design of a series of public spaces
and transport facilities in an area dubbed the Transit Oriented
Development (TOD).
The two architecture firms were appointed based on separate entries to an international design competition.
Digital
renderings of the educational park show a sprawl of buildings with
greenery on their roofs, curving in layers like the topography of
terraced rice paddies. The buildings, which include university
buildings, dorms, national laboratories and offices, mimic the hilly
landscape to form a valley, with a 80,000-square-foot building nestled
at its center.
GMP's design includes an overhaul of an existing transit hub. Credit: ATCHAIN
The
campus was based on the natural surroundings rather than the needs of
car traffic, said OMA partner Chris van Duijn, who leads the firm's Asia
projects.
"Masterplans
in China are typically based on infrastructure and quantities ... the
local topography (is) often ignored," said Van Duijn over email. "The
result is that many masterplans throughout China look very much the same
and opportunities to develop cities with local characteristics are
missed."
GMP's
plans for its transit hub include overhauling an existing subway
station and building a sculptural rotating viewing platform called the
Eye of the Future.
A crop of new cities
Chengdu's
new outpost is among a number of "future city" projects currently under
construction in China. Rapid urbanization in the country has led to
population caps in major metropolises like Beijing and Shanghai, while
the Chinese government projects that around 1 billion people will be living in its cities by 2035.
To
manage the overflow, officials are funneling money into new satellite
cities like Xiongan, which is being built just over 60 miles from
Beijing and is expected to be home to 2.5 million people. And last June,
plans were unveiled for the car-free "Net City" in Shenzhen, which will be roughly the size of Monaco and is being built by tech conglomerate Tencent.
The
forthcoming Future Science and Technology City is not the only
large-scale urban development being built in Chengdu. Also under
construction in the Tianfu New Area, where the city's new airport is
located, is the so-called "Unicorn Island," a technology hub designed by
Zaha Hadid Architects.
The Eye of the Future is a hexagonal rotating viewing platform. Credit: ATCHAIN
Van
Duijn said OMA anticipates that the first parts of its new project will
be completed by the end of 2021, with the wider site finishing within
another two years.
"Despite
decades of urbanization in China, the repertoire of urban planning is
still very limited. It seems we have only two conditions: it is either a
city or it is a rural area. But as cities have expanded ... people are
also becoming interested in alternatives," he said.
"The
project is not a typical urban project nor a landscape preservation
project, but we hope to provide multiple ways in which city and
countryside can both coexist and provide another type of urbanized
development."
Top image: OMA's masterplan for the International Educational Park in the Chengdu Future Science and Technology City.
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