Focusing onLOCATION: Jiading, Shanghai｜

TYPE: Environmental protection/Community park｜

SCALE: 1.3 hectare｜

DESIGN/ BUILT: 2014 / 2016｜

PHOTOGRAPHY: Zhu Siyu, Li Danfeng｜

Riverfront Aite Park is a 1.3-hectare community open space located within the North Hongqiao Waterfront Landscape Masterplan in Jiading, Shanghai.  The park offers perfect occasions for recreation and communal activities, particularly arouses residents’ awareness of environmental protection.

Located in the grey zone between residential area and factories, the site was a dump ground for construction waste, occupied by overgrown and surrounded by dusty trucks. No one had ever imagined it would be a welcoming public social space in this community until it is revitalized through an innovative design approach. The park re-utilized a large amount of existing earthwork to form new topography, and waste materials were packed into galvanized metal gabion baskets and piled up as landscape installations.

The most iconic landscape in this park is the 202-metre long and 5-metre high gabion wall at the south side, blocking this cosy communal space from adjacent cement factories. Along with a 350-metre long jogging trail, exercise facilities and other gabion installations, this site is successfully turned into a community park.