High-tech Quantum Pocket Park

The Quantum Pocket Park is an eight-hundred-square-metre street-corner renewal between Nanjing Jingyang Primary School and Chunmiao Kindergarten in the High-tech Zone of Chongqing, opening onto University Town East Road and designed by 10Design in July 2023. As urban regeneration shifts away from wholesale demolition toward gentle, fragmentary mending, pocket parks have become key instruments for improving street environment and residential quality. Before renewal, the site was an unremarkable tree-pit strip beside a busy road, with single-purpose planting that blocked pedestrian flow. Responding to residents, parents and children, the designers set out to provide a walkable shared space for neighbours, a shaded waiting area for caregivers, and an interactive playground for children. To amplify the High-tech Zone's scientific identity, the park is themed around quantum science, translating abstract ideas such as the atomic nucleus, electrons and the solar system into simple geometric design language. A shared central zone acts as the nucleus, while two leisure and interaction zones at the ends act as electrons, linked by movement in space. The ground is inscribed with planetary knowledge, connecting the microscopic quantum to the macroscopic solar system. An annular track gathers around the core, squeezing out three concentric layers: public seating, planted communities and interactive play. Curved benches at varied heights suit users of all ages, while the track edge is pressed downward to form an annular planted bed whose canopy gives the space a living dimension. The planting is led by the local ficus virens, Chongqing's symbolic tree, set within a wildflower meadow of herbs, gaura and salvia that changes through the seasons. The colour palette draws Klein blue, brightened from the High-tech Zone logo, signifying wisdom, hope, technology and dreams, paired with natural green to blend the park into the street.