Green City - Blue City
The Second Hebei International Urban Planning and Design Competition – Xingdong New Area Urban Design International Master Competition organized by Urban Environment Design (UED) Magazine recently announced its list of winners for this year’s City of the Future edition. The concept of “Green City - Blue City”, proposed by the internationally renowned architectural practice UNStudio, specializing in architecture, urban planning and infrastructure project became one of the finalists of the contest.
The quality of the environment has become one of the most important criteria by which the projects proposed for the urban space transformation competitions are evaluated. The main theme of the Xingdong New Area Urban Design International Master Competition was the revitalization and quality improvement of one of the key cities in Hebei Province. As one of the fastest growing cities in the area, Xingtai is undergoing a spatial restructuring aimed at comfortably accommodating more than seven million people.
Acting as an integral district between Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei, it was important to explore the city of Xingtai’s area and industrial advantages in order to construct a new city that integrates foreign developments and business. The competition combined the city’s current conditions combined with recent strategies and future visions.
“With the development of the times, the requirements for cities have long been different,” explained UED Magazine. “From the “low cost, rapidisation” to the “re-innovation, quality” profound changes, the new era requires high-quality development in many aspects, emphasising humanism, liveability, characteristics and ecology. Nowadays, China is in the process of informationisation, intelligence, ecology and humanism. The cities in change are no longer rigidly attached to the traditional spatial form. Cities need more to return to people’s needs, improve the urban experience, improve city quality and better promote future urban development.”
In view of this, UNStudio proposed a new approach for the design of future cities named it – “Green City Blue City”.
UNStudio’s urban vision for the 11,660,320 m² Xingdong New Area puts people and nature first, it aims to (re)brand the city through principles of sustainability and urban resilience.
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Materials provided by UNStudio