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Plans for citydevelopment utilise greenbelts and irregular grids to combat urban monotony
Zhengzhou is the capital of Henan province, it is also the main transport interchange for road and rail between north to south and east to west of china, in recent years, the city was recipient of funding from the central government for massive infrastructure investment.
The city has been expanding towards the north and east. This project was a limited design competition to expand the present city boundary 5 km south, to create a new mixed use centre for live, work and play with the possibility of attracting new industries to relocate here.
The site has three physical factors that divide it up. The first is a large waterway, the second an elevated rail track and the southern end high tension power cables. All these six run east-west across the site.
The idea behind the master plan was to create a strong physical identity and element that would unite the site into a coherent whole while allowing easy access north-south and east-west.
This was achieved by creating a 150 m wide greenbelt forming an internal ring park which unites the site, and by using greenbelts to utilise the waterways, railway tracks and high tension cables.
The main arterial runs north to south and terminates in a monumental civic space at the southern end of the park. Secondary roads then form the grids running east-west. Traffic systems integrate all pedestrian paths with public transport with a surface tramline in the centre of the roads.
The site consists of mixed use offices, retail and residential. The density is highest at the edges of the site and decreases towards the centre of the site.
Housing is arranged into perimeter courtyards with retail on the 1st to 2nd floors. Towards the northern edge of the city, a more irregular grid is an attempt to introduce a more random weave to the fabric of the city as a transition to the newer part of the city
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