Guangzhou Yuexiu Star City Champion Square

Yuexiu Xinghui City Champion Plaza in Zhongluotan, Baiyun District, Guangzhou, is a 1,300-square-meter children-and-all-ages activity space set between two buildings, adjacent to the Li Ning Sports Stadium and a north-south cultural and commercial axis near the Zhongluotan metro. The starting point for the design is the memory of Li Ning lighting the 2008 Olympic cauldron: the plaza is meant to carry that athletic glory and to spark curiosity about Olympic sports through play. On the west, the first phase occupies the whole gap between buildings A and B; a future municipal road will later split the site, so the design has to remain legible after that split, with most installations fixed and only small elements reusable. A second requirement is a large, flat, unobstructed ground for temporary stages, exhibition tents and mobile carts. The strategy was therefore a suggestive linking route, a unified element language and an orderly layout on a strict dimension grid. Building A is the sales gallery and Building B is the stadium, which gives the theme its direction. Within 1,300 square meters, the project accommodates eleven Olympic sports and thirty-four play modes. Original installations include an art sculpture slide derived from Yuexiu's Kun IP, whose rounded belly uses a soft diffusing mirror to face the main path; a torch sculpture at the main entrance that glows with diffuse perforated light at night, signifying sporting spirit and acting with the site logo as an entry marker; a victory-fireworks main installation modeled on celebration pyrotechnics and confetti cannons, which praises visitors' athletic spirit and closes the empty skyline between the two buildings; and a kung-fu zone built around an enlarged wooden dummy, where children practice balance, climbing, hanging and drumming, joined by pulley and weight-training equipment that echoes the stadium's martial-arts fixtures. Along the edges, age-graded equipment includes talking tubes, a sailboat seesaw, trampolines, a pump track, a tennis arch bridge with a giant red tennis ball, swings, a long jump and a podium, chosen for lower cost and easy relocation after the future road. Completed in October 2022 by Xisui Design, the plaza is meant to remain, years later, a distinctive Champion Plaza where children run, climb and make friends while parents rest, breathe and stretch.