Jinan Watertown (2023)
Project Data
Total GFA: 31.000m2
Location: Jinan, China
Function: Commercial, Culture, Mixed-Use
Features: Interwoven fabric of urbanity and nature to create new landmark watertown
Scope: Architectural Master Plan and Concept Design
Status: In Construction
Credit: Ben Wood (BWSS) as expert consultant
Project Summary
The water town is the central civic urban landmark of the new Jinan Start-Up Area development zone. Bordering a large park, SoftGrid's concept of a 3-dimensional natural-urban hybrid activity block won 1st price in the high-profile competition.
Interwoven systems of urban patterns and landscape elements intersect at the central plaza to transform into a vertical enclave. While the parkscape extends in green alleys alongside waterways into the project, it climbs to form a raised semi-private live-and-work parkscape among the village-scale roofscape. At the same time, the minerality of the urban pattern dematerializes into a glass and wood-structure panoramic F&B village overlooking the entire civic park.
Waterways mediate this dialogue and create destination spaces themselves. The central plaza brings together the elements of water, urbanity and nature in place of day-to-day exchange, special events and cultural performances.
Layout of the water town strictly follows best practices in terms of orientation, dimension, area assignment and functional zoning to not only create a first-class human scale environment, but also seamless operation and a a compelling business case.