Dongguan Jianyuzhou Cultural Park

Jianyuzhou Cultural Park is located on the banks of the Dongjiang River in Dongguan. Jianyuzhou is a small island surrounded by water on three sides. Because of the unique geographical advantages of the Island, since 1979, 52 grain and oil and foreign trade enterprises have gathered here, including the first foreign trade freight terminal, the first Sino-foreign joint venture, the early customs, and the water police station. The island laid the foundation of Dongguan’s early industry and foreign trade, and it was also Dongguan’s window to the world.

At the start of the planning of Jianyuzhou Cultural Park, the architects and landscape architects decided to keep a number of historical buildings built in the 1970s to 1990s, such as the big water tower, the big chimney, the customs building, the feed mill, and the grain and oil processing factory, as well as more than 500 existing trees on site. Today, there are still as many as 6 historical buildings and 33 Category I and II protected buildings in Jianyuzhou. Renovations have been carried out based on maintaining the historical style, creating a rich industrial and artistic cultural park.

Landscape design of Jianyuzhou Cultural Park respects the existing resources of the legacy industrial area. We have formulated a strategy of ” Protection of Plants, Renovation of Space, and Reuse of Structures”. We established the east-west cultural axis of the island as the main pedestrian avenue, and planned three north-south corridors: Show Corridor, Celebration Corridor, and Shade Corridor. According to the architecture characters, three blocks are defined,namely Slow Streets(exhibition/performance), High Streets (hotel/commercial), and Art Streets (office/creative), as well as several gathering areas, such as the Chimney Square, Silo Square, and Water Tower Square. In addition, a promenade and a running track have been added in the riverside area, connecting the food court, the dock, wetlands, wedding lawn and other spaces in series.

On the Cultural Axis, we use recycled concrete and glass chips as aggregates to create terrazzo pavement with industrial memory. Dozens of Corten steel plates that record the memorabilia of the island are embedded in it. Visitors can read and quickly understand the historical changes while walking on the avenue.

Art Street is at the heart of the project, with a concentric circle paving system centered on key structures and large trees, paved with a large number of recycled red bricks and a small amount of volcanic stone. The large JIANYUZHOU pinyin pattern paved in front of the Silo Square using materials such as red bricks and Chinese roof tiles has become a highlight of the aerial view of the park.

The overall planting design also borrows artistic techniques of Lingnan Gardens. The park is covered with ancient banyan trees, we carefully trimmed and preserved most of the vegetation on site. More than 500 existing trees in all conditions are kept, so that people can enjoy shadows, fragrance and flower blossoms from the first day of park opening. The landscape not only brings in commercial atmosphere, but also ecological aspects. Corten steel is used for tree planters, benches, feature walls, signage, sculptures and more, echoing the surrounding industrial style.

In the riverfront area, leisure and sports corridors are arranged adjacent to the river. A wedding pavilion is designed in the riverfront lawn area. The white structure is pure and situated on the natural ecological base, it creates a different kind of scenery under the sunset.

Jianyuzhou Cultural Park brings in an alternate angle to brownfield renovation. Now the decades-old factory buildings are efficiently operated by restaurants, IT companies, design firms and sport training camps. The abandoned industrial island has become the most edge and creative urban blocks in Dongguan.