Jinmao Life Science City

The Central Park of Ningbo Jinmao Life Science City is the first landmark amenity completed within the master-planned TOD new town developed by China Jinmao in Fenghua, Ningbo. Located on the Fangqiao site in northern Fenghua, roughly nine kilometers from the Fenghua central district and fourteen kilometers from downtown Ningbo, the science city is positioned as the developer's first industry-city integrated project in the region, oriented around humanism, the greater-health industry, healthy communities and a rail-served one-stop urban core designed to drive urban renewal. The Central Park, designed by the Landscape Public Buildings I studio of L&A Design's Shanghai office, opened to the public in November 2019 and covers a total area of approximately 67,583 square meters. Conceived as an educational ground, a stage for chance encounters and a contemplative retreat, the park draws on the site's inherited ecological assets along the confluence of the southern Sanjiang water system and works with living, locally rooted materials to weave interaction, playfulness and poetry between landscape, water and people. Under the guiding principle of design that grows from nature, the team lets earth and art compose the scenery together, producing a public open space charged with warmth, sharing and participation. Planting clusters divide the site into six themed spaces arranged in layered counterpoint: an arrival welcome plaza, a romantic tree-lined promenade, a leisurely sunken garden, an ecological sun lawn, a viewing overlook and a Japanese-style zen garden, forming a varied natural-art park that serves every age and background. The welcome plaza establishes the first visual image, with symmetrically composed logo feature walls, refined planting, grade changes and textured materials creating a simple, grand and inviting threshold. The broad open lawn is a signature gesture, hosting a wild camping zone and multi-use programs, while bermed gentle mounds lift the flat water-town plain into sculpted terrain. A children's play zone set within another lawn uses sand and timber, materials that naturally draw children, and parents camp on the surrounding turf. The zen sunken garden exploits the site's existing hydrology and sustainable landscape strategy to offer quiet contemplation and slow walking, while the northern overlook, on the site's highest point, frames the park and the cultural-sports center beyond. Night lighting blooms like flowers against the city, inviting post-dinner strollers and solitary visitors alike, and the project embodies the developer's ambition to make beauty, lived warmth, futurism and innovation the defining keywords of southern Ningbo.