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City of Plazas Masterplan

Baotou, a city with rich mineral resources especially rear earth, and a heavy industrial base during the communist era, has seen rapid urbanization during the recent years. The existing urban fabric, built according to the master plan jointly created by experts from the Soviet Union and scholars from Tsinghua University in the 1950s, is characterized by numerous urban plazas and parks. Baotou also enjoys the largest urban prairie in the world. These characteristics make Baotou a unique place with qualities that is rarely seen in Chinese cities, and have greatly inspired our master plan for the new CBD area, the City of Plazas, which in fact bears our ideals for the city of tomorrow.

To Create Spaces Not Objects

What to be created are not a bunch of buildings, but a new district, a new city. OPEN set out to ‘master plan’ urban spaces that organize dynamic urban life for our city of tomorrow, instead of simply making eye popping building objects that contribute little to the urban life.

[collapsed]The City of Plazas is indeed organized around a central plaza much like the Union Square in New York City, as well as a few other public plazas strategically placed within the new city. Bracketed by buildings around them, these well landscaped and easily accessible public spaces are the focal points and social energizers in the new urban fabric. They help to create chances for social interactions and give strong sense of communities.   
  
Different Urban Typologies

Historically cities are built in much longer period of time and they continue to morph just as any other living forms. The traces of time and slow evolution of urban fabric often make old cities much more attractive than those generic new towns. Although we cannot possibly mimic the time dimension in the evolution of cities, we can however avoid creating an overly homogenized urban fabric that lacks excitement and spatial experiences. OPEN investigated and introduced a variety of different urban typologies for different blocks in the City of Plazas. These varied typologies bring rich urban experiences and dynamic life into the new area while working under some consistent underlying zoning guidance, such as carefully studied scale of streets, continuous shop fronts and so on.    

The entire CBD is planned as a mixed use and fully functional new city with offices, shopping malls, hotel, commercial spaces, SOHO, residential, restaurants and other support functions. Each of the blocks within the CBD is also designed with multiple and supporting programs. By uniting a complete and dynamic set of functions needed by a city in a coherent spatial configuration, healthy vibrant and well balanced urban life can be sustained.          

24-Hour and Weather Proof City Life

The vibrancy of city life is expressed through both daytime and nighttime activities. The mixed-use programming of the new CBD creates continuous urban life both day and night.

In a city like Baotou where weather can be severely harsh for almost half of the year, strategies to cope with the weather and ensure dynamic urban life all year round is an important aspect in the master plan. OPEN created a pedestrian walkway network that interconnects public functions of different blocks, making possible weather proof urban living throughout the year.
Living with Nature

To bring together the convenience of urban living, and the healthy connection with nature, the master plan employed different strategies to maximize the green spaces in City of Plazas. Sky gardens are incorporated into building masses whenever possible; landscaped public plazas are created on different levels; a central plaza with open green space and water body is the ‘green’ heart of the new city.

Green spaces are created with colorful and vivid trees, shrubs, grass and sedum. Besides creating pleasant living environment, vegetations also help to mitigate the micro climate in the area.

Different strategies of making City of Plazas an environmentally responsible development were employed, such as 100% efficient water collection and treatment; a people-centric, multifunctional transport system; buildings with high floor area ratio and zoned heating and cooling systems, which use energy from more than 15% of renewable sources; a non-traditional water source supplements 15% of usage.

Traditional Chinese wisdom tells us man can and should live in harmony with nature. In the broader context of global environmental crisis we are facing today, every effort needs t be made in building our new towns green and sustainable.   

City of Plazas is an attempt in creating an exciting and dynamic urban experience for our city of tomorrow while being socially and environmentally responsible.[/collapsed]

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