H Zhou Works

Thursday, December 09, 2010


Water channels connecting a series of traditional villages are the typical land features of the region west of the international city-Shanghai. As the population of the city growing rapidly and its density reaching record high, returning to a rural and traditional life and enjoying a second home at a water town becomes a popular idea for many citizens in Shanghai. The challenge of the Bamboo Grove Community is to combine the traditional landscape style with a mixed-used modern community adjacent to a lake theme park. The project will exemplify the character found in historic towns with walkable streets, neighborhood water park and trails, and different housing types and commercial buildings mixed together to creat a highly desirable community.



Four Seasons Hotel Resort Sanya Project is located at the Yalong Bay National Tourist Resort of Sanya City, Hainan Province, the southern tip of Hainan Islands, the true edge of the sky and the rim of the South China Sea. The challenge of the project is to develop a master plan on the steep slopes and adjacent rocky cliffs while leaving as much as possible the local wild vegetation untouched. The location and orientation of the every building have been studied in order to maximize the spectacular views to the South China Sea from most of the suites.





The project report on the local newspaper

A high-rise community offers more homes than the other housing types for the people in a populous urban area. However it also burdens the land with more human activities interfering the local hydrologic circle which is an important ecological process to keep the water balance of the nature. In conventional projects the rain infiltration into soil is interupted by the concrete structures. At 3000 Li (Sanqiangli) High-rise Community a typical water treatment is adopted as an attempt to ease the forementioned concern. The rainwater is collected for irrigation, landscape water features and toilet flushing. Most importantly, the excess water is deverted into the pools and swamps adjacent to the project. The landscape grading in the center garden is artistically manipulated to direct rainwater into the designated cisterns. The straight pedestrain pathes are arranged according to the shortcuts and integrated with fire-fighting zones. The two wedge-shape corridors offer uniformed landscape features to connect the two project phases divided by a public street.


High-rise housing, one of the most popular solutions for the cities' extremely high density of population in China, has come with some spectulations about its impact and influence on urban environment. Given city open spaces being more and more consumed and occupied by rapid developments, the centre gardens enclosed by high-rise towers have been seen as expedient substitutes for municipal open parks. In addtion the centre gardens of high-rise housings have to accommodate higher volume of visitors. Qingbo Community is designed to help set a new standard of high-rise residential green spaces for Chengdu, a fast growing city of Western China. The design principles for Qingbo community aim to create sustainable, attractive open spaces that respect the quality of local people's lives. attempt to visually hide the freeway from the side of residential neighbourhood.


In Chongqing, a city featuring its mountainous topography, designers have to deal with complex landforms when it comes to work on site planning in the region. Lijiang at Chongqing is a mid & high-rise community situated at a mountainous area beside Jialing river. The swimming pool of the community club is located at one end of the community park. The original land has been slightly reformed to put a swimming pool backed by a multi-terrace garden which covers and dissolves the structure mass of the service building. The site plan helps to create a privacy feeling while maintainning the views to the park.




Townhouse planning in China is defferent from that in North America. A significant amount of recreation lands have to be replaced by residential developments in order to ease the pressure of high population desity. Accordingly, pathes which generally are solely seen as walkways take on a dual role both as circulation and garden spaces in the planning. The gardens for Qujiangshengjing Townhouse Neighborhood exemplify this idea in the historical city of China-Xian. The pathes in the townhouse community have been transformed into a series of linear gardens which significantly enrich the outdoor walking experience and create an additional value for the community under the limitation of open spaces.

The entrance garden serves as a transitional feature between the outside and inside of the new built community next to an ancient style village with a famous 1000-years-old Tang Dynasty pagoda in it. The design of the garden adopts certain traditional philosophies in order to respect the context and the history of the area. The ideas such as "Zen" and "Ying & Yang" have been integrated into the design to arouse a sense of serenity and poetry.





The excellent sales performance of the project causes media attention.



Haowangshan Neighbourhood represents one of the emerging trends of residential development which applies exotic architecture in China. Tuscan style from Italy has been introduced into the design of this residential mid-rise community in Chongqing. The challenge of the project is that the every design aspect has to meet the requirements of local conventions and prefered life style, whereas the appearance of the entire environment has to follow the authentic Tuscan style. Such balance has finally been achieved subtly and successfully from the master plan to the landscape detail development.