It's a little early to be talking about bringing home gold medals from the
2008 Olympics in Beijing, but a team of students and faculty from the
Landscape Architecture department returned from China this spring as winners
in an international design competition. The "very Virginia Tech" team also
consisted of alumnus David Hill of Hill Studio in Roanoke, and Binyi Liu,
chair of the landscape architecture department at Tong Ji University in
ShangHai, and former visiting professor of the Landscape Architecture
department. Together the three groups, led by Hill, were charged with the
task of designing a new resort community on what is now a 1,000 acre rice
paddy in China.
The group was the only team from the United States, and one of only four teams in the world invited by the city of Zhang Jia Gang, China, to compete in Phase II of the design process. The competitors included Canada, Australia, and Europe. More impressive, the team competed against purely professional consulting teams, with the exception of the Canadian team, who also employed a university consultant.
Zhang Jia Gang, already known for being one of the most successfully planned award-winning cities in China, wanted a fresh approach for the site design. Being a fairly new 20th century city sandwiched between historic Shanghai and populous Nanjing, with the Gardens of Suzhou to the south, they wanted an identifying feature and something to draw visitors and tourism to the area. Looking for "out of the box" design concepts from around the world, they found what they were looking for from the U.S. team.
The city's basic design guidelines included the incorporation of a 5-star resort and residential area on the site, but teams were encouraged to include other creative features into their designs. The VT design included a culinary institute, equestrian and sports training facilities, wildlife island, and large business and retail centers. They were also charged with being sensitive to the existing lake, and deal with the sitešs water and ecology issues.
A trip back to China this summer was the next step for Professor Ben Johnson and Research Associate Catherine Xu, who along with two students, presented the final plans to city officials. The entire project will not be complete for a decade or more, but when fully built, the site will be similar to the size of the VT campus, and house approximately 35,000 people. Project drawings and documents can be viewed on-line at www.lar.arch.vt.edu/resources/china/concept.html.