WAF Future Project 2019
Finalist - Landscape Institute Awards 2020
WilkinsonEyre won a major international competition for the urban design and masterplanning of the Greater Bay area of Shenzhen, south-eastern China. Commissioned by the Shenzhen Government, the Shenzhen Bay Avenue East Extension will create a 1km multi-layered pedestrian connection between the commercial district of the city and the bay, introducing a lively public realm promoting healthy and sustainable living.
The winning design celebrates the concept of ‘City-Culture-Bay’ to create a coherent ensemble of interconnected elevated walkways, linked by escalators and stairs to a lively streetscape and basement level civic realm. The route passes through three distinct zones, from the central business district through to a new cultural quarter and on to a landscaped park on the bay.
Key urban spaces include a transport interchange with a bus station and links to two subway stations, a sunken plaza and the Platform Park, envisaged as a calm space amid the hustle and bustle of the city. Retail has been incorporated within two extensive basement levels along the Avenue where the multi-layered landscape brings light and shade into the scheme to create dramatic internal spaces, connected through vertical circulation nodes to form part of the integrated wayfinding strategy.
In 2019 the Shenzhen Bay Avenue East Extension was awarded the WAF Future Project Infrastructure Award. The judges commented: "This project creates pedestrian life on different levels. It has a dynamic, fluid, functionally justified shape that weaves between the buildings to the water. There is active urban intervention creating a diverse public space."
Design Development
