Shanghai Tianlin Park renewal design

To Be A Contemporary Community Park Tianlin Park, initially a fenced-off green space named "Tianlin Central Green Land", was built in 1999. As a public green space serving nearly 20,000 residents in an area with a radius of 300 meters, it had only one entrance at the southwest before renewal. This fact isolates the park from its surroundings and fails to build connection with the daily life. This green land, providing minimal chance for residents in the east to get access, run at low efficiency as one of the public goods. This calls for a truly open community park without the fence. After thorough survey, research, design and local hearing sessions, VIASCAPE's renewal scheme was finally stabilized after going through the reviews at the end of 2021. Our design strategies include removing boundary walls at the east and west, blending the park into the community with strong publicity, and keeping the park 24-hour open. On top of these, the design scheme addresses more critical topics such as responding to all age users' requirements, existing landscaping integration, and presentation of community and local culture. All efforts contribute to the final product of Tianlin Park as a contemporary community urban habitat with full spatial structure and regional characters. ▽ ，Bird’s eye view of Tianlin Park in the morning from west to east ▽ ，Bird’s eye view of Tianlin Park from east to west 2. A Vibrant Habitat Circle of Activities Tianlin Park is defined as a "community park" 1 in terms of its size and location. In Chinese " Tianlin" is composed of the two characters "Tian" which means land and "Lin" which means woods. However, our site survey shows a rather surprising fact that this place is filled with existing dense well-established trees but hardly has recreational activity spaces. And the existing '"woods" with densely spotted trees established for more than 20 years is the restrictive condition of increasing functional spaces for fitness, recreational facilities, and other all age activities. To retain existing big trees and other crucial green resources in the park, we decided to build a framework for the activities under the tree canopy based on the current circular and curvy pedestrian network. With the "shaping with existing shape"2 design strategy, we build a vibrant habitat Circle of activities with "circular lawn+ circular main path + curved activity areas" in the core area of the park. VIASCAPE designed a round lawn in the center of the park for users to get quick access, providing an open green experience in the high-density community. Mengtian Gallery, which incorporates terraced decking, a viewing platform, a recreational area, a gardening center and a habitat center, is the most significant recreational and service center in the park at the north part of the lawn area with the best sun exposure. Meanwhile, the main path consists of a "3 meters jogging lane + 1. 5m circular recreational green zone + 1. 5m circular pedestrian" set aside at the grand lawn is assembled to create the basic spatial structure of Tianlin Park with a multi-functional purpose. Functional spaces such as fitness courts, kids' play and family gaming areas are arranged outside of the main road ring for all age users. These areas are weaved into the existing woods with an alternating pattern, forming a vibrant space covered with natural green and stitching the community vibrancy and its natural base together. The construction of vibrant habitats built upon circular space is crucial to Tianlin Park's spatial design. This design is not just adapted to current user behaviors but also bears unique spatial and visual characters belonging only to Tianlin Park. 3. Production of the Natural Habitat System Tree preservation and carbon sink building are fundamental parts of the renewal design considering the existing lush woods, which inspired us to create a natural habitat system in Tianlin Park. We apply manicured evergreen flowery shrubs as the backbone of the shrub layer under the canopy. On top of this, low-maintenance perennial groundcovers and other shade-tolerant perennial flowers are employed to build a simple, but rather natural green space. We also leave the edge of pedestrian and other paved areas fully open, with which sunken green spaces are generated to establish a rain garden system. Diverse functions are furthermore married to the rain gardens to create diverse categories such as natural style, land art style and water source style. Along the natural style rain gardens, we incorporate fruit viewing habitat, fragrant habitat, herbs habitat and rock stone habitat into the under-canopy space. This will naturally create biodiversity, abundant visiting experience, and educational significance. And we designed "Insect Hotel" and "Benjes Hedge" with wasted building materials (bricks and stones) and abandoned tree trunks, applying them in the construction of ecological land-forming. Different from the penetration function of natural style rain garden and land art style rain gardens, water source rain garden is sunken green space under the tree canopy that is capable of storing rainwater, synergized with adjacent new fruit trees to provide water and food source for birds. We try to balance natural protection and the construction of a more comprehensive park habitat system, which will increase the environmental carrying capacity for the community and create a direct visiting experience with natural habitat and ecological education elements under the construction of a holistic green landscape. 4. Cultural Habitat of the Neighborhood The general layout of Tianlin Park could be mapped as two rectangles with different sizes. A smaller rectangle to the east is spatially independent. It was a paved area enclosed with metasequoia woods before renewal. We incorporated a multifunctional tourist center(Linyin Gallery 3) in the existing paved area, providing basic services for users. The design of Linyin Gallery and its surroundings differs from the major space for Tianlin Park according to the spatial and contiguity analysis. It follows a 4x4x4m module, which maps a combination of tangibles and intangibles. In the presence of the metasequoia woods, Linyin Gallery manages to be a serene corner of the park. The modular design that balances the tangible and the intangible enables flexibility to incorporate diverse functions, such as the tourist center and 24-hour open entrance east of the Park. Linyin Gallery is poised at a flowy move that is “straight and curvy”, “dynamic and still”, and “hidden and exposed”, presenting a space and cultural philosophyof contemporary garden design. In comparison to the openness of Tianlin Park main part, the in-depth hiddenness of Linyin Gallery in metasequoia woods leads an unique landscape experience. 5. the Complete Meaning of Habitat in Tianlin Park "The HABITAT in the Woods" is the design concept of Tianlin Park renewal project, also a summary of VIASCAPE's effort to protect existing vegetation, optimize the land use under the tree canopy, and improve the natural environment. We pursue to design and construct the Complete Meaning of Habitat in Tianlin Park, which is: ①a landscape system that responds to its positioning as a community park and meets the needs of the users to incorporate multifunctional activity zones. ②based on the open green image of Tianlin Park, versatile expressions of the rain garden system uncurled a natural habitat with soil, vegetation, insects, small mammals, and birds as heroes. ③the trial of the modern garden building combined with park administration service at the east part of Tianlin Park, is an attempt to implant local cultural habitat. The academic issue of how to develop and inherit the traditional Chinese garden culture spirit is of the special concern in VIASCAPE’s design practice. What is worth mentioning in the end is the lighting installation named Lin Jian Meng Tian 4 at the west boundary of the park. It is not just an art installation, but a memorable participatory design practice full of emotional attachment that is proposed by VIASCAPE and written by the local calligraphy enthusiasts under the organization of Tianlin Subdistrict Office as well. Notes [1] Community park as defined in Chinese StandardforclassificationofUrbanGreenSpace（CJJ/T85-2017）, is a green space with basic recreational facilities and services, mainly serve residents in a certain distance to have daily leisure activities. [2] "Shaping with existing shape" is an approach and strategy developed from VIASCAPE's design practice in recent years. [3] see the article titled The Third Type of Line published in the 4th issue of Time Architecture in 2024 or VIASCAPE's article titled Tianlin Park tourist center on professional online media for details. [4] Lighting installation "Lin Jian Meng Tian" consists of 4 groups of Chinese calligraphy. They are respectively "Lin", "Jian", "Meng", and "Tian". Each group consists of the same character written by 7 different local calligraphy enthusiasts.