Environmental consequence During the three decades of filling the bay, Shenzhen Bay offered its millenniums of environmental and cultural assets only to be compensated with holistic and dramatic ecological imbalance. Pearl River estuaries were now an exotic species and the 83 km long coastline had become a sterilized moving target. Planning studies indicated that from 1980 to 2010, landfilling of the bay was equal to 65 square kilometers or roughly 4% of the mainland. Historically, the coastline was a complex, intertwined system of Mangroves dotting the base of mountain top vistas. By the third decade, only one small Mangrove estuary of significance remained and the others were replaced by turbid waters wrought with severe pollution and siltation. Watershed hydrologic connections to the bay were reinterpreted as impervious coffins and their waters meet the bay in a frightening confluence of concrete. The final straw was the observation of the bay’s seemingly infinite terrestrial and aquatic flora and fauna vanishing one dump truck at a time.
Drawing the line Shenzhen has become an internationally recognized city through bold ambitions, much persistence, and a singular focus on the hard edges of modernity. However, the price of this all in approach reached a crescendo louder than the cranes, dump trucks, and construction crews enveloping the city. City and planning visionaries recognized the increasing disconnect from their heritage and waterfront and called for a stop to the bay construction destruction. Collective voices ceased landfilling practices and sought a permanent edge that would provide pedestrian access to the bay, restore its rich ecology, and provide regional education opportunities and recreation; a world class park defining the final landfill edge.
Edges, connections, cycles The new Shenzhen Bay Waterfront Park is 15 kilometers long and 60 hectares, seamlesly reconnecting the city back to its bay while also serving as an important gateway from Hong Kong. Given the park’s scale, location between converging interests, and long term aspirations, the design team synthesized its fundamental needs into a park concept of “Edges, Connections, and Cycles”.
Edges The “Edge” is an essential principle to guide waterfront development. Edges manifest themselves in many ways and at many scales. The edge is what provides the complex richness that attracts so many species to the water’s edge, including the human species. It is manifested in the physical, biological and social realms. In the Shenzhen Bay project, edge development promotes the interaction and extension of multiple ecosystems, cultural system and social spaces: mangrove, seashore, wetland, forest, continuous slow-movement systems, residential development, Port functions, energetic urban core and innumerable other waterfront elements.
Connections Connections describe the relationships between all the different elements of the edge condition. These links happen at all different scales and between all different systems. The connections that guide the design of the Shenzhen waterfront focus on the following aspects: »
Hydrologic connection from city to nature;
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Biological connections from city to nature;
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Human activity connections from city to nature;
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Cultural and traditional connections;
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Visual corridor connections; and
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Connections between people and temporal cycles
photograph from www.sznews.com
COASTAL RESILIENCY
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