Design of Theme parks
Project
Introduction
1.Project Origin
The project is located in Loess Slope, Badong County, Hubei Province, China, near the Three Gorges, the Yangtze River. This is the shortest lived human survival site and its construction time is the closest to now in the history of human civilization. In 1992, with the launch of the Three Gorges Dam project on the Yangtze River, the water level of the river rose, and the millennium old ancient Badong County was unfortunately submerged under the river. Subsequently, the new county was urgently relocated to Loess Slope. Howerver, due to the government’s hasty decision, there was a lack of detailed research on the new county site selection, and the county was built on a geological landslide area, resulting in the collapse of houses and casualties in the newly built place, where quickly fell into ruins.
From 2008 to 2017, this newly built new county had to undergo another comprehensive relocation project that lasted for nine years. At the same time, the ecological improvement and restoration has also been carried out on Loess Slope, and after that the area has become a forgotten copse. By clearing the chaotic plants and excavating the surface soil, the ruins with the shortest existence time in human history gradually reveal their true face, resembling the scenery of Machu Picchu in Peru.
2.Concept of the design
The design takes “Sports Vitality and the Rebirth of the Old City” as its vision and adheres to the concept of “preserving site memories, displaying geological features, and incorporating contemporary functions.” It respects the site to the greatest extent and retains many original remains within the base. It connects the original roads within the site in the most convenient way to form a sports vitality ring and a leisure viewing ring. Through minimal intervention, it creates diverse and vibrant spaces in the original terraces, forming a series of distinctive “places” that attract people. By setting up areas and nodes such as landslide ruins area, building ruins area, ruins monument, 7-a-side football field, basketball court, platform camping area, and platform barbecue area, a comprehensive sports and leisure park integrating the display of old city ruins, riverside sports and leisure, and geological disaster education is constructed.
It is worth mentioning that in response to the stable and reliable foundation of some collapsed houses in the original site, we innovatively extracted the soil between the pile foundations to transform the negative space into positive one that can be used as service facilities.
Since its completion, the park has not only become a research base integrating ecological and geological education, but also provided a unique sports and leisure destination for the people of Badong city. More importantly, it has awakened precious memories of people who worked and lived on this area more than 20 years ago. On the day of the park’s opening, we witnessed numerous adults with their children sharing their childhood experiences on site, which left us deeply moved.
