Gold Urban Planning and Urban Design · 2020
Yong Quan Public Park
by Ching-I Wu
- A' Design Award 2020 Gold Winner in Urban Planning and Urban Design
- Awarded April 15, 2020
- CLIENT: S.D. Atelier Design and Planning
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 65,290
- Verification code 65FCF8738C · Verify this award
About Yong Quan Public Park
Yong Quan is a public park created on the site of a former sugar factory. The park covers 22672 square meters and keeps the traces of the old factory railway. A circular trail surrounds a central lake that follows the route of the former main railway line. An observation deck extends from Fuxing Road Bridge toward the lake, and an elevated wooden deck reaches an island. A wide square beside the main factory building can hold a large crowd. Springs and gravel layers feed the lake, which supports aquatic plants and water birds.
Hsu Fu Chu's award-winning Yong Quan Public Park represents a distinguished achievement in contemporary landscape architecture and urban ecological design, demonstrating how thoughtful intervention can transform urban territory into multifunctional public amenity that serves both human recreation and environmental restoration. The design appears to draw upon traditions of naturalistic landscape design while incorporating contemporary ecological principles, creating a water body that functions simultaneously as aesthetic focal point, stormwater management infrastructure, and habitat corridor within dense metropolitan context. The compositional sophistication reveals itself most clearly from this elevated perspective, where the deliberate contrast between the organic curvilinear water body and the surrounding orthogonal street grid creates productive visual tension that celebrates the park's role as counterpoint to urban rigidity. Technical accomplishment manifests in the careful calibration of water-land interfaces, the strategic placement of architectural interventions that provide human access without compromising ecological function, and the sophisticated planting design that establishes varied vegetative communities from emergent aquatics to riparian shrubs to upland trees. The floating vegetation patterns suggest a managed ecological succession that balances aesthetic appeal with habitat provision, their organic forms recalling traditional ink painting aesthetics while performing contemporary environmental functions. Thematically, the work engages enduring questions of humanity's relationship with nature within urban contexts, proposing that cities can nurture rather than merely contain natural systems. The viewer might contemplate how such designed landscapes mediate between human needs and ecological processes, and how the experience of this space might differ between the aerial overview presented here and embodied ground-level encounter.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- Travelling though the river of time, and discovering the history of an old sugar factory.
Walking on the shore trail left with traces of the previous sugar factory railway, we feel the historical atmosphere where the scenery of the circular trail surrounding the lake fascinatingly resembles a ring on lake telling us the history of the sugar factory. From the tour to Taichyu Factory of Teikoku Seitou K.K., I see not only the charm of vitality, also the complete history. - Dimensions & Packaging
- The property is 22672 square meters.
- Tags
- Landscape, Public Park, Historical, Factory,Nature
- Production Technology
- To the south of the square, there are magnificent forest and hill landscape attractive to animals and people. The irregular riverside slopes and the elevated wood deck connected to the island on the central lake constitute the best platform for ecological education. What we see by walking on the shore trail are the traces of the historical sugar factory railway. The lake surrounded by the circular trail was the main railway of the in the past. The circular trail has a comprehensive view to the entire sugar factory, from which we learn not only its lovely appearance, also its complete history.
- Design Challenge
- Thirdly, the new attractions of recreational activities, the plentiful shops, convenient transportation systems, and the integration of business and humanity.
Lastly, the new location of the east district of Taichung, the conceptual image of East Gate of the provincial capital of Taichung, the view on the elevated railways, and the renovations of shops in Taiping District and Beitun District. - Project Duration
- The project finished on the 16th of
- Operation Flow
- As to environmental resources and design skills, the lake signifying the urban hydrological and ecological sustainability is constructed with the drainage system with the springs and the gravel layers. A large volume of groundwater therefore flows towards the construction site. The underground tunnel systems support the growth of aquatic plants and permanent pond that establish the education of urban hydrology, the ecological island, and the habitat for water birds.
- Research
- Secondly, the regeneration of industrial culture and the continuation of sugar industry and railway culture embodied by the architectures and the environment arrange of the sugar factory combined with the railway traffic flow and scenery demonstrate exemplify the conceptual images and traces of sugar factory derived from the memory passing through the tunnel.
- Inspiration
- This project reorganizing the history of the sugar factory develops the stories and functions of space conformable with the developments of the factory. People can be closer to nature on the lake observation deck extended from Fuxing Road Bridge to the central lake. Following the riverside pathway, we see the main building of the sugar factory where the wide square can accommodate a large crowd.
- Image Credits
- Ching-I Wu
Colors of Yong Quan Public Park
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