In the urban development process, landscape design is not merely a decoration but rather a container for activities and an infrastructure with resilience. Today, we enter AECOM to explore a licensed landscape architect, Hanting Xie, who possesses rich practical experience and unique insights in the field of landscape and urban design.

AECOM is a globally trusted consulting firm in providing comprehensive services for infrastructure projects. From planning, design, engineering to project and construction management, it offers professional services at all stages of the project life cycle for clients, covering multiple domains such as transportation, architecture, water affairs, new energy, and the environment. It stands as a unique professional infrastructure construction service force in the world. In Greater China, AECOM has established offices in more than 10 cities including Hong Kong, Taipei, Shanghai, Beijing, Shenzhen, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, with a total of over 6,500 employees.

Hanting Xie joined AECOM in 2019 and has been involved in numerous international and high-standard landscape and urban design projects over the past five years. Since 2021, Hanting and the team have been engaged in a new landscape project in Ningbo Eastern New City. The site of this project spans three urban blocks in Ningbo's central business district and is adjacent to the ecological corridor of the central park in Ningbo's eastern city. It serves the ambitious Ningbo Center Tower (409 meters high, currently under construction), known as "the tallest building in Zhejiang Province," and the surrounding hotel and commercial areas. Hanting and the team designed all the outdoor landscape spaces on the site, including the retail entertainment plaza, the front yard of the office building, the entry courtyard of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and the roof terrace. As the project is located in a high-density central business district, one of the major challenges faced by the team was that all the open spaces are constructed on structures. Therefore, the team is highly concerned about the coordination of the weight and location of site elements and is extremely cautious in every move. To meet the regulatory requirements for fire truck access within this relatively tight site, Hanting introduced movable, custom modular site furniture to the plaza, which also provides flexibility for the plaza to hold various events.

As a core member and the interdisciplinary coordinator of the design team, Hanting discussed the design concept for this project in the interview: "We hope that this project can provide a place that can stimulate activities for the users and the public of the building while meeting the high-density development of Ningbo Eastern New City. The landscape design draws inspiration from the lotus-shaped building exterior and selects rippling movement and meandering water as design images." In addition to laying a solid foundation in infrastructure, the design team also attaches great significance to the design of the green space outside the building and hopes to create an "emerald necklace" in the relatively cramped project site.

"The 'emerald necklace' is a very necessary element in landscape design. A series of lush green spaces around the building soften the boundary of the building, making this city space dominated by skyscrapers and with a certain sense of oppression become relaxed and pleasant. In addition, we let the building sit on a calm reflecting pool. Through the reflection and highlighting of the water surface, the building will appear noble, grand, and extraordinary. The way of entering the building only through a connecting bridge further emphasizes the noble experience of the building entrance."

(The picture shows the landscape design schematic of the front yard of the super high-rise office tower, the entry courtyard of the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and the roof terrace.)

Regarding the design practice of this project specifically, Hanting also mentioned the innovative landscape elements and materials used in this design. For example, the reflecting pool around the super high-rise tower and the streamlined gateway feature walls in the hotel entry courtyard were specially created by the design team for this project. Hanting and her design team also introduced rippling featured pavement in the hotel entry courtyard that echoes the geometry of the lotus-shaped super high-rise tower and the reflecting pool. The gradient color pattern of the pavement was achieved through parametric design. To shield and beautify the ventilation structures of the super high-rise tower, the design team employed a water curtain wall with tiled finishes, thus giving a subtle texture to the water curtain, which is both aesthetically pleasing and functional.

As a participant in the One Pengrui project in Guangzhou, which won the 2023 Loop Design Award earlier, and the newly completed Treasure Island Waterfront Plaza and Promenade project in San Francisco, the United States, Hanting has accumulated diverse landscape design experiences in practice. For her, the mission of landscape architects is to conceive design strategies from an in-depth understanding of the existing site elements, and to creatively introduces readable and legitimate forms that is aesthetically pleasing, less intervened, and easy to maintain. In this era of rapid development, virtual and intelligent have become a craze, we still need passionate professionals like Hanting Xie to constantly contribute to the improvement of our built environment.

(By Maxwell Tremblay)

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