concentric pathways and gardens encircle HID's connective urban node in hubei, china

rotating water drop park revives abandoned urban space

With sweeping curves and pathways encircling pockets of green, HID Landscape Architecture’s Rotating Water Drop Park becomes a vital node in the Donghu Avenue Urban Renewal Project in Hubei. Sited in the core area of Yiling District, transforming an empty lot into a multidimensional street corner garden, the development addresses urban issues including congestion, abandoned spaces, constrained movement, and lack of integration with the community.

The architects thus instead reimagined the site as a bustling, connective landscape comprising the Vitality Hills, Rotating Water Drop Corridors, Water Drop Urban Furniture, Rain Garden, and more. It serves as a dynamic space where city residents freely engage in unexpected uses such as idle contemplation, small vendor stalls, dancing spaces for elderly women, and playgrounds for children.

all images by IMA, with renders courtesy of HID Landscape Architecture

hid landscape architecture creates vital node in the city

Following the demolition of the Gold Triangle building which previously sat on the site, HID Landscape Architecture encountered numerous new challenges, including extensive underground pipelines affecting plant cultivation, exposed facades of dilapidated buildings originally facing the back streets, a sudden appearance of urban substations, and elevation differences due to hilly terrain. Throughout the design process, the team sought to devise a spatial texture that effectively directs people into the inner space without disrupting pedestrian traffic at the busy intersection. Additionally, they introduced a type of space that attracts people to stay within this limited area with a multipurpose program.

The stable motion of an infinitely rotating water drop forms the spatial order, effectively guiding urban pedestrian flows. The space is structured with rotating flower beds and ground-level LED light bands forming a loop, with a Mandala-like curve bringing instant dynamic sensations, creating swirling ripples, with all pathways emerging from a central core, exhibiting independent yet interdependent dynamics. Dynamic elements in static form provide the site with boundaries that encourage lingering.

HID Landscape Architecture completes Rotating Water Drop Park

dynamic forms invite rest, interaction, and play

Intense greenery softens the existing building facades that cannot be immediately upgraded, while the continuous Mandala curves in stasis become dynamic pergolas, flower beds, and seating areas. These pergolas serve as both pedestrian resting spaces and commercial spaces, and more as entrances to future urban green spaces. HID Landscape Architecture plants flower beds along the sidewalks to attract and guide pedestrians, offering temporary waiting spaces.

Dynamic elements in static form provide the site with boundaries that encourage lingering. Intense greenery softens the existing building facades, as pergolas serve as both pedestrian resting spaces and commercial spaces, while forming entrances to future urban green spaces. A sunken quiet lawn provides a brief resting spot, yet lacks the attraction of an active vitality hill.

transforming an empty lot into a multidimensional street corner garden

Amid the Vitality Hills, a small hill rising 1.2 meters above the lawn sits beside a lawn sinking 450 centimeters, naturally creating seating for parental supervision along the site’s edge as they overlook their children playing. Features like spinning discs, slides, climbing hills, tunnel tubes offer endless play opportunities, while sculptures of grassy water drops on the lawn inviting interaction.

Rotating Water Drop Corridor unfolds as a folded paper-style gradient corridor that rises with curves, maintaining dynamic elements of rotating water drop in the space. It serves as a resting boundary and a rainwater collection corridor sloping from south to north. During rainfall, water flows along the roof of the corridor, gathering at a specific point in the northern section, then cascading down through metal rain chains into stainless steel collection basins on the ground. The corridor structure from top to bottom can be deconstructed into five layers: hyperbolic paraboloid-shaped stainless steel plates roof, truss structure skeleton, hyperbolic paraboloid-shaped stainless steel plate ceiling, tree-like structural support columns, and independent pile foundations. The three layers of the roof intricately interlock in spatial hyperbolic paraboloid folded paper forms, capturing the infinite forms of rotating water drop. 

all pathways emerging from a central core

addressing urban issues including congestion, abandoned spaces, and lack of integration with the community

the stable motion of an infinitely rotating water drop forms the spatial order

the spatial texture directs people into the inner space without disrupting pedestrian traffic at the busy intersection

amid the Vitality Hills, a small hill rising 1.2 meters above the lawn sits beside a lawn sinking 450 centimeters

the pergolas serve as both pedestrian resting spaces and commercial spaces

hosting idle contemplation, small vendor stalls, dancing spaces for elderly women, and playgrounds for children

intense greenery softens the backdrop of the existing building facades

centered on the image of a water droplet

1/10

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

project info:

name: Rotating Water Drop Park
location: Yichang, Hubei

landscape architect: HID Landscape Architecture

design team: Wu Hao, Zhang Lu, He Yujiang, Zheng Sinan, Shen Huashu, Xu Zhican, Yang Zihan, Zheng Shiyu, Zhang Zhibo, Lu Qian, Chen Ying, Zeng Zhaoyin

client: Yichang Yiling District Urban Construction Project Management Service Center

installation deepening and production: HASA Installation Art

design area: 3000 square meters

photography: IMA