Prologue

Changchun is a city imprinted with the genes of Northern China’s industrial civilization. Amidst a wave of rapid economic development and an ever-rising pursuit of urban quality, it is calling for a new dialogue about the ideal life of the future.

Against this backdrop, Vanke has chosen a core plot along the main development axis of the Southwest Automobile Economic Zone. Using a 160,000 m² urban park as the underlying canvas, the project embeds the local memory of industrial civilization and reinterprets its materiality in a contemporary way. It is not only conceived as a new landmark that transcends geography, but also as a repair and re-stitching of the city’s fractured fabric, ultimately pointing towards a renewed paradigm of everyday urban life.

With a total site area of 56,566 m², the development is planned as a multi-phase complex integrating parkland, commercial streets, low-rise residences, offices, and hotel programs—an all-encompassing “magic carpet park” community of the future.

Drawing inspiration from the vast northern plains, lush meadows and softly undulating hills, as well as the vernacular imagery of “pine forest snow houses” and “big courtyard life,” the design extracts colors from local culture and condenses symbols from place-specific temperament. Heavy industrial memory is thus distilled into a warm and honest container for daily life, refreshing the urban frontage of Changchun’s southwest district.

At the outset, the site remained in a near-raw, untouched state: municipal roads were yet to be completed; existing pipelines and facilities imposed multiple constraints; surrounding oil depots, factory buildings and elevated roads formed a noisy, fragmented urban edge. The preconditions were far from optimistic.

We therefore began by excavating the site’s inherent potential—adroitly leveraging its natural terraces to construct a three-dimensional landform. The design is grounded in the land itself: by planting a patch of wild, characterful woodland, we re-knit the broken ground into a new ecological and spatial fabric. It is both a poetic suture to the ruptured urban grain and a green elevation of the municipal streetscape.

Rooted in the climate and culture of the northern frontier, the design takes the archetype of a northern mountain forest as its key motif. A curated grove of 56 native black pines establishes a distinctive “forest threshold,” a natural and unpolished pine enclave. Sheltered beneath the pines, the architecture sits like a cluster of snow houses, quietly exuding the warmth of daily life. Stepped terraces cascade outward from the buildings into the forest, forming an interconnected sequence of public verandas. Together, they create a continuous “journey of discovery” that weaves through the trees, allowing landscape functions and human activities to grow naturally within the woodland.

From morning coffee drifting through first light, to leisurely outdoor tea by the fire pit; from casual chats at the open-air bar, to the lively bustle of a barbecue market- every storefront hides in the dappled shadows of the trees, and every outdoor seating area gently melts into the forest.

As evening falls and the pinewood is slowly immersed in darkness, carefully orchestrated lighting comes alive. Flecks of light and shadow dance among the trunks and foliage, engaging in a quiet, wordless conversation with nature. Like a living container nestled within a park, the place is filled with warmth, poetry and the pulse of everyday life. The act of returning home transforms into a gentle, restorative journey.

Complementing the everyday vitality of the pine forest is a hotel arrival court infused with ceremony—where northern landscapes meet Eastern notions of ritual, and the stories and noises of the city are gathered and transformed into an atmosphere of grace and dignity.

A 100-meter ceremonial axis extends into the scene. Tactile, warm wall surfaces speak of understated luxury at an architectural scale. Rippling reflections shimmer across the waterplane, filtering out urban clamor. Curated black pines stand sentinel at the entrance, performing a timeless ritual of welcome and hinting at a lifestyle of refined order.

As the sun rises and the moon sets, light quietly performs its choreography—drifting across water, ground, and walls, refracting and reflecting to shape a space that seems to breathe with time.

Visitors’ eyes and minds are gradually drawn away from the surrounding distractions and immersed instead in the subtle language of lines, colors, and textures. Only a calm elegance that has withstood the test of time can flow so quietly in the interplay of light and shadow, conveying an understated sense of sophistication and peace.

Passing through the lobby, a surge of verdant scenery spills indoors like a tide of green. Sparse woodland, sloping grass, rock placements, cascading water and a floating bridge through the valley compose a deep, secluded natural scroll that unfolds before one’s eyes, finally leading visitors into a sunken secret garden seemingly detached from reality.

Within the inner garden, a three-dimensional woodland is planted as the project’s spiritual core. The architecture steps back and recedes, giving pride of place to nature itself.

A multi-level gallery links the entirety of this inner world. Corridors and bridges appear and disappear between trunks and canopies, while water flows and cascades across varying levels. The space is no longer a closed courtyard; instead, it opens to the wind and merges with the green.

We translate familiar scenes of northern and Chinese life into spatial episodes:

• the warmth of “fireside night talks” is embedded in pine-forest pavilions;

• the contemplative joy of “chess and quiet thought” is housed within small glowing garden rooms;

• the elegance of “winding streams and floating cups” is transformed into layered falls and vertical water;

• the imagery of “heavy snow on the green pine” is condensed into a carefully placed solitary pine in the courtyard.

Urban life, neighborhood warmth, and unrestrained conviviality slowly reappear, awakening the land’s latent memories of home and origin.

Soft, amber indoor light spills outward, like a harbor for returning souls, carrying and extending the emotional currents of the space. As Geoffrey Bawa once said, “A great courtyard is not only a place of shade and shelter”; it is an inward-oriented vessel for self-nourishment, granting the space an upward, organic tension to grow.

Every small corner is an entry point to the story of the space. Using low-saturation colors as the base tone, the design fuses rough-hewn stone, warm timber, and soft planting into a gentle material collage. Through the collision and reconciliation of textures, a living environment with perceivable temperature is constructed.

We are exacting about every grain of texture, and patient with every shaft of light. Within arm’s reach, the space releases a quiet yet powerful emotional resonance, allowing the poetic nature of dwelling to be felt precisely in the smallest gestures and details.

The best architecture allows trees to keep on growing.

The best communities allow life to unfold naturally.

The best homes allow the soul to find its harbor.

Here, every morning begins with birdsong, every dusk is spent walking under the shadows of trees, and every season offers a different landscape. It is a place where time and space grow together with those who live within it.

• Project Name: Vanke Park Metropolis · Puyue
• Location: Automobile Economic Zone, Changchun, China
• Site Area: 56,566 m²
• Gross Floor Area: 130,935 m²
• Design Year: 2024
• Completion Year: 2025
• Client: Changchun Vanke
• Client Team: Han Baogang, Fu Ying, Chao Lei
• Landscape Design: Change Studio
• Architectural Design: AAI International Architecture Firm
• Interior Design: Shenzhen ZHISHI Interior Design Co., Ltd.
• Façade Design: Shanghai Anxun Façade Engineering Design Co., Ltd.
• Photography: Ning Wang