Text description provided by the architects
Rooted in the ancient Shu Jinsha cultural heritage of Chengdu, where the poetry of nature seeps into valleys, lakes, and rivers, this landscape project seeks to express the thousand-year cultural depth of the Jinsha area as the foundation of the city's western cultural lineage. The site belongs to the Jinsha plate, where the soul of western Chengdu resides, located at the intersection of Bairen East Road and Shuxi South First Road on West Third Ring Road. The first site visit in March 2020 revealed convenient traffic, but a 45-meter-wide municipal green buffer between the site and the ring road, together with a main entrance adjacent to Bairen East Road, which compromised the display interface. The design had to excavate site value, screen out external disturbance, create a new spatial experience, deliver aesthetic value, and convey the future lifestyle of the larger residential community. The landscape design explores the boundaries among nature, people, architecture, and city, softening spatial divisions and expressing a sense of place through different materials. The team sought a natural, distinctive Sichuan land system that would evoke local cultural memory through artistic and surprising scenes. Drawing on Chengdu's identity as a millennial city born of water, where the Minjiang River tumbles through valleys into lakes, the design aims to express the Daoist idea of following nature, the sudden openness after a winding path, and the stillness after a mountain stream. As a sales gallery, the space comprises the urban interface, parking, front court, sales building, rear court, and show flats, deliberately blurring the boundary between landscape and architecture so that the sales building, show flats, and visitors merge into one painted landscape. Four sequential scenes unfold along the visitor route: Inviting Valley, Ink Pool, Flying Bridge, and Green Islet. Inviting Valley uses the imagery of a mountain gorge, with layered design guiding entry through a narrow cliff-like passage and white waterfall. Ink Pool uses a black mirror-like pool, where the metallic and glass volumes of the building reflect among tallow trees and a solitary tree. Flying Bridge crosses the rear water on a great-arc deck that nearly touches the surface, with a green islet floating in the water. Green Islet, reached by the bridge, uses red maple trees to enclose the space, with light dappling across lawn, branches, and bridge, creating a moment of seclusion in the busy city.