LILA – Landezine International Landscape Award 2022

Songzhuang, a local village in Beijing’s Eastern suburbs, became famous for its art community in early 2000. Urban migration of younger people resulted in an increasingly aging village population combined with younger artists.
The local government commissioned Crossboundaries to regenerate a linear streetscape into a lively outdoor community park creating a space for integration and interaction of all age groups.

The L-shaped plot features a series of outdoor ‘rooms’ along a linear loop track, connecting elements meandering between a street-side pavement to an extending park.
The yellow track forms a physical and visual link between the different public areas and these rooms offer different levels of enclosure and boundary along a sequence.

Transforming the initial street corner into a small plaza, the first room opens up a semicircular space defined by its surrounding angular brick walls in combination with large mirror surfaces. From morning to evening, tai chi and fan dances are performed, from here begins the loop of the bright yellow asphalt track.
The second room follows to promote tranquil interactions: long benches along the stepping profiles of interspersed brick walls invite to rest and stay under the shade of the trees.
On the corner to the extending park, the third room highlights children’s play: a sunlit yellow room with varying openings in the walls for hide-and-seek and connecting speaking tubes where shouting and singing can be heard. And inside the rectangle of the park, the loop track itself forms the fourth room, increasing in width becoming an open-air gym centered in green meadows.
The streetscape meets with responding to different people’s needs: the inclusive nature of the design, its variety of inviting, bright spaces with colorful accents was adopted and occupied instantly and stands for a true example for integration and encouragement of interaction for all age groups.

The project well addresses the dialogue between different scales – the well articulated and complex general layout of the park and the ‘touch and feel’ scale, sensitive and rich in detail. It establishes simple and unpretentious spaces with care and sincerity to its visitors.