Aranya Childrens Farm

The Aranya Children's Farm is located next to an existing locust forest at the Aranya Gold Coast Resort in Beidaihe, Qinhuangdao. It is an outdoor playground and farm designed for children throughout the resort. The design proposal divides the site into two distinct parts: a quiet meditation space within the forest and a joyful, lively farm on the forest's edge. The forest space features a simple wooden boardwalk and acrylic screens that capture light and shadow, allowing visitors to experience the changes of light and wind in nature while walking beneath the trees. The farm space draws inspiration from the Shan Hai Jing, the Classic of Mountains and Seas, and incorporates several interactive landscape elements in animal forms: a fishbone pavilion, an eel bench, a starfish flower field, a climbing conch shell, and a five-clawed octopus slide. These elements give the venue a unique memorable identity while allowing children to enjoy physical interaction with the landscape. Through play, children learn about animals, plants, and agricultural irrigation. The site's most prominent natural features are a large coastal dune and the locust forest growing upon it. Over the past decade, more than half of Qinhuangdao's coastal dune locust forests have disappeared, which the design team found deeply regrettable. However, further research revealed that the locust forest itself is only decades old, having been introduced from North America via Europe in 1898 and widely planted as the primary afforestation species on coastal sand after 1949. This raised the question of what truly constitutes nature on this land, and what is the site's essential character. The design team concluded that the site's soul lies not in the locust trees or the dunes or the coast, but in the constant transformation of nature and human affairs, and in the small yet resilient vitality of human life within it. The project embodies the Chinese cultural spirit of finding joy amid hardship, offering a place for relaxation, mental clearing, and simple play within the resort context.