Forgotten run-down warehouses and factory floors have been rejuvenated by the influx of cultural and creative industries. While being transformed with a new lease of life, the area becomes a hybrid of post-industrial park and urban space – what we call a Thriving Neighbourhood.

Buildings and completion of landscape are only the start. We have left space for neighbourhoods in the area to grow. After people start to work, ship, gather, and live here, buildings and landscape will grow upon human interactions, ever-improving along with the transformation of the city.

The project is located between East Fourth Ring and East Fifth Ring roads of Beijing, fragmented by several railways. It was the warehouse of Beijing Glass Company prior to 2015. Some of them were used to store glasses, some were leased out to paint and lime factories, while others were used as workers’ dormitories. Redevelopment plans have given this fringe area of historic significance and unique environment possibility of improvement. It was also made the polit section of the area’s redevelopment.

Six railways cut through the project area. A series of commercial, office, recreational, and creative zones dotted across what were factories and warehouses, forming a new hybrid community. As the landscape designer, Change Studio planned the most optimised transport links that connect the fragmented neighbourhoods, together with other contractors and the client. The result is integral and multifunctional. Through the designing process we aspired to optimise the technology and usage of materials, so as to control cost and leave buffer for the project’s operations later on.

Buildings with light grey walls and sloped tops dotted across the area, long with modern well-lit venues. Roaring trains pass by and weave together the past, now, and future, giving the town some weight of history and sense of literature and arts. Waiting for the next train to pass by while sitting at the café by the road is a popular pastime. Trains with green carriages of the old days give off industrial glory of the last century. They share this moment with static buildings and humans, each subtly connected to one another. The space under the railway bridges is liberated from the function of the railway, becoming the interface between public space and roads. These plots of new spaces provide a lot of recreational and enjoyable environment along the blocks, with terrain management and the introduction of plants. Some under-bridge spaces were designed into parking lots, competing the functions of the blocks. Other parking spaces are outside the main town area, saving the town centre for pedestrians and non-vehicle transport.

The roads are the most important and complex core systems of the town. We designed them as continuous, nimble, and sharing spaces, with some public and private spaces interconnecting. The town has a lot of works by top architects, so we integrated their works into parts of the roads, minimizing the designing of the roads and maximizing the rich forms of the architecture. 

Most venues have left ample open space for activities, such as parks for train spotting, roller skating square, and the art gallery at the street corner. The most beautiful time of the neighborhood is when people are drawn to shops’ exquisite decorations, and when the roller-skating square is full of people.

Neighborhood flooring utilizes modularized light weight cement blocks, which are easy and fast to implement, and save as much as 50% construction cost. In the park that people wait to see trains passing by, installment from recycled cement blocks created new atmosphere. Rich greenery of the streets are an important component of the biodiversity of the town. Trees, vines, and climbers with flowers contrast with buildings. The greenery adds warms to cold cement spaces. We also carefully designed resting spaces along the greeneries.

The project demonstrated how forgotten spaces are transformed into attractive venues, supporting elasticity for society, culture, environment, and economy. 

Materializing this level of cultural sustainability and aesthetics that catches eyes demands complex collaboration between the designers, engineers, investors, and the community. Thriving Neighborhood can be a solution to a lot of challenges in modern city planning: appropriate intervention and intentional hands-off, creating room for joint efforts from multidiscipline teams.

公司网址：www.chan9e.cn
Location: Gaobeidian, Chaoyang, Beijing
Area: 3 ha
Completion: 2019
Client: Fan Tian(Beijing) Group
Landscape Design: Change Studio
Photography: Ning Wang
Website: www.chan9e.cn