Shenzhen Nanshan Foreign Language High-School Campus

Designed by IF Benzhi Landscape for the Shenzhen Nanshan Foreign Language High School campus at the junction of Keyuan Avenue and Industrial 8th Street, the 27,420-square-metre landscape addresses a common Shenzhen condition: rising expectations for school environment against shrinking land. The school is one of Shenzhen's leading campuses, and the brief demanded a city-level response. Apart from the standard running track, the open space framed by rectangular teaching blocks is fragmented; the design challenge was to use that limited ground to build rich out-of-classroom learning, social and artistic space. High-school students, at once youthful, ambitious and under gaokao pressure, are treated as the users who make a space comfortable; the landscape therefore aims for a 'decent and subtle' temperature, neither over-designed nor under-built. The design draws on the six virtues of jade from the Book of Rites, propriety, wisdom, music, trust, righteousness and benevolence, distributing them across key spaces. The main entrance establishes sequence and dignity, with a green wall bearing the school name as an emotional landmark. Above the lecture theatre, a soilless roof is turned into an outdoor knowledge garden of desks and benches threaded with planting. A 5-metre sunken amphitheatre of wooden steps supports small performances, class meetings and informal talk, with leaf-shaped speaking and performance platforms at its centre. The west fire lane is converted into a quiet jacaranda walk, a private route for psychological recovery and solitude. A sunken music garden on the basement level, ringed by music, dance and art classrooms, uses three curved coloured acrylic walls to enrich layers and create acoustic reflection. The 400-metre track, two outdoor basketball courts and a volleyball court support team sport and open views to the Shenzhen Bay skyline. The project is intended so that, years later, graduates will remember walking, talking and studying together under the trees.