(By Maxwell Tremblay) In the urban development process, landscape design is not just decoration, but rather a container for activities and an infrastructure with resilience. Today we enter AECOM to meet a licensed landscape architect, Hanting Xie, who has extensive practical experience and unique insights into the field of landscape and urban design.
AECOM is a globally recognized consulting company that provides comprehensive services for infrastructure projects. From planning, design, engineering to project and construction management, it provides its clients with professional services in all phases of the project life cycle, covering numerous fields such as transportation, architecture, water management, new energy and environment. It is considered a unique professional service provider for infrastructure construction in the world. In Greater China, AECOM has offices in more than 10 cities, including Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou and Chengdu, with a total of over 6,500 employees.
Hanting Xie joined AECOM in 2019 and has been involved in numerous international and high-end landscape and urban design projects over the past five years. Since 2021, Hanting and the team have been involved in a new landscape project in Ningbo Eastern New City. The site of this project spans three city blocks in Ningbo's central business district and is adjacent to the ecological corridor of the central park in Ningbo's eastern city. It serves the ambitious Ningbo Center Tower (409 meters tall, currently under construction), known as “the tallest building in Zhejiang Province”, as well as the surrounding hotel and commercial areas. Hanting and the team designed all of the outdoor landscape areas on the site, including the shopping and entertainment plaza, the front garden of the office building, the entrance courtyard of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, and the rooftop terrace. Since the project is located in a densely populated central business district, one of the biggest challenges for the team was that all open spaces would be built on structures. Therefore, the team attaches great importance to coordinating the weight and location of the site elements and is extremely cautious in every movement. To meet regulatory requirements for fire engine access on this relatively narrow site, Hanting has installed movable, customized modular site furniture on the square, which also provides the flexibility to host various events on the square.
As a core member and interdisciplinary coordinator of the design team, Hanting explained the design concept for this project in the interview: “We hope that this project can create a place that stimulates activities for the users and the public of the building, while meeting the high-density development of Ningbo Eastern New City. The landscape design draws inspiration from the lotus-shaped building exterior and chooses rippling movement and meandering water as design images.” In addition to creating a solid foundation in the infrastructure, the design team also attaches great importance to the design of the green space outside the building and hopes to create an “emerald necklace” on the relatively cramped project site.
“The 'Emerald Necklace' is a very necessary element in the landscaping. A series of lush green spaces around the building soften the boundaries of the building and make this urban space dominated by skyscrapers and characterized by a certain sense of oppression feel relaxed and pleasant. In addition, we have placed the building on a tranquil reflecting pool. The reflection and highlighting of the water surface will make the building appear noble, sublime and extraordinary. Access to the building only via a connecting bridge further emphasizes the noble experience of the building entrance.”
(The picture shows the landscaping plan of the front yard of the super-tall office tower, the entrance courtyard of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel and the rooftop terrace.)
Regarding the design practice of this project in particular, Hanting also mentioned the innovative landscape elements and materials used in this design. For example, the reflecting pool around the super high-rise tower and the streamlined gate walls in the hotel's entrance courtyard were created by the design team specifically for this project. Hanting and her design team also introduced a corrugated paving in the hotel's entrance courtyard, reflecting the geometry of the lotus-shaped super high-rise tower and the reflecting pool. The gradient pattern of the paving was achieved through parametric design. To shield and beautify the ventilation structures of the super high-rise tower, the design team used a water curtain wall with a tiled surface, adding a subtle texture to the water curtain that is both aesthetically pleasing and functional.
As a participant in the One Pengrui project in Guangzhou, which previously won the 2023 Loop Design Award, and the recently completed Treasure Island Waterfront Plaza and Promenade project in San Francisco, USA, Hanting has accumulated diverse landscape design experience in practice. For her, the role of landscape architects is to develop design strategies from a comprehensive understanding of existing site elements, and creatively introduce legible and legitimate forms that are aesthetically pleasing, less intrusive, and easy to maintain. In this era of rapid development, virtual and intelligent solutions have become the trend, and we still need passionate professionals like Hanting Xie to constantly contribute to the improvement of our built environment. Her work will definitely have a practical and far-reaching impact on the sustainable development of human society.
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