Huzhou Anji small Hangkeng Camp

Xiaohangkeng Camp in Anji, Huzhou, is a secret base in Xiayang Village, one of many spontaneous camps that have formed across the bamboo-cloaked hills of this ecologically rich county. Designed by the public landscape team of L&A Design's Shanghai office, the upgrade project deliberately applies a light-touch, minimal-intervention philosophy: the site is given only the basic functions a camp requires, with safety and service experience improved, and everything else returned to the mountains. On arrival, visitors are met by thatched-roof entrance pavilions flanked by waving fountain grass, whose soft, grey-green plumes continue the wild, original feeling the designers found on their first visit. A broken-stone path leads to the central tent area, a public service core where visitors can eat produce from an edible garden, drink coffee, talk with friends and watch open-air films under canopies. Beyond it stretches a broad camping lawn, open enough to gather even in pandemic times, ringed by a fire pit around which log benches carved with growth rings invite evening conversation. Along the shore, tents go up beside people sitting in canvas chairs with coffee. The existing site, built over decades as a series of terraced pads, had safety hazards; the redesign aims to keep visitors safe and comfortable while offering spring flowers, summer grass, autumn leaves and winter snow against a backdrop of mountains, lake and meadow. The campsite is organized into a self-built zone, a bring-your-own-luggage glamping zone and the central tent zone, with pads positioned to secure both views and privacy; each glamping tent is equipped with heating and cooling, refrigerator, Bluetooth speaker and ambient lighting, and every toiletry from towels to earplugs is provided. Paths of old railroad ties, gravel and boardwalks creak underfoot, and mixed meadows of miscanthus and pennisetum soften the edges. The four-hectare project is positioned as a cultural-tourism and rural-revitalization operation that returns people to the mountains beyond the noise of the city.