The Nanhu New Country Village master plan introduces a new type of development to this rapidly urbanizing and polluted region in China. A majority of the site is maintained as working farms, while the traditional architectural style of the region is reinterpreted to create structures that integrate with the environment. The design centers on a network of contaminated canals, which will be remediated by new infrastructure.
Jury: “This is an excellent example of sustainable design that supports food production and habitable spaces, and that establishes a viable regional footprint for agriculture, housing, and natural conservation.”
Client: “In China, most of the developments are really big. We asked SOM to help us introduce a more human-scaled project so that people can walk and have that village feeling. This area is quite polluted, and SOM has been giving us new information on how to do a constructed wetland so that we can actually clean the river water.” —Iris Ting, director of the design department, Jiaxing Alliance Development Corp.
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