Project

Urban regeneration, instead of planning for city extension, is an increasingly important topic in Chinese urban development. Little experience with regeneration exists within the profession and the administration. Shenzhen again is acting as a laboratory for how to handle the new challenges of working within existing cities in China. The regeneration area is a new chapter in the history of G107, China’s first modern highway. With the economic opening in the 1980s, investment into Shenzhen, then labelled “Factory of the World”, started when Hong Kong businesses built their first factories along this new spine connecting Shenzhen to Beijing. After now 35 years of development, the zone along G107 is characterised by hyper diversity and a generally poor urban condition. Besides immediate problems of regular flooding and congestion, the area is blocking Shenzhen’s economic shift from production towards innovation and services. The main challenge of the regeneration proposal was a future-proof plan and to develop an implementation process that carefully integrates and addresses the complexity of the existing urban fabric and stakeholders.

Client

People’s Government of Bao’An District

Program

53 km² regeneration masterplan

Stages

2016 Urban redevelopment plans
2017–2019 Implementation plans

Team

MLA+, CAUPD, Shenzhen Municipal Design & Research Institute, Felixx

Awards

2016 International Planning Competition 1st Prize