Jiachen Road, Changsha

Changsha Jiachen Dao is developed by Chenjia Development Group with landscape design by LAURENT Luo Lang and built by Hunan Wuwei Landscape. The site sits directly on the Xiang River, within seven hundred metres of the water, ringed by municipal parks and nearly surrounded by nature; the design brief is how to respond to that proximity without simply occupying it. The team answers by producing a landscape that is both coordinated with nature and artfully composed, expressing respect for the natural setting and a tribute to natural art. The Xiang River is read through its imagery of working waterways, shoals, tidal islands, fishing boats and waves, and these emotional currents are translated into a sequence of experiential spaces. "Pursuing water" leads visitors through a rocky gorge that rises and falls, widens and narrows, alternately quiet and lively, where natural rocks simulate surging waves and perform a slow transition from outside to inside. In September, sapium leaves rustle overhead; by November the same route will read differently. "Playing on the shoal" recalls the sight of finless porpoises rising and falling in the river, and the design uses layered light on water that seems just out of reach, with stepping, receding waterlines that record the river's coming and going. "Riding the wave" is organised around a circular, formal basin where ordered water sheets fall rhythmically over stone, evoking a high mountain cascade framed as a still life. "Watching the tide" opens onto a quiet lounge for book clubs, sitting by the water and reading. "Returning to dream" is the night-time return, when a crescent moon rests on the river and the sound of the water continues. The project is located at the intersection of Xiaoxiang North Road and Yinyue Road in Wangcheng, Changsha, and treats art and nature as an interwoven luxury in which poetic landscape and precisely crafted waterwork together reach beyond time.