Ballistic Architecture Machine (BAM) has built the first high-density park in Tianjin, China.
As an unconventional multidisciplinary design firm with offices in Beijing, Shanghai, and New York, BAM continues to challenge conventional ideas about urban landscapes – this time with an action-packed design for a sports park in a mega port city in China.
Award-winning design
Tianjin 4A Sports Park won the landscape project of the year at the 16th Grand Prix du Design Awards in Canada, and received recognition at the Architizer A+ Awards for its innovative approach to embedding learning environments in public spaces through play.
Palimpsest as structure
BAM celebrates ancient history with this new design. In this project, the team was initially very taken with the site history, which included a temple and small town called Yixing Town.
Today, the site is a modern city built over the remains of historical Yixing. While this historical town was destroyed, BAM utilises the urban plan of the original Yixing as a palimpsest, resurfacing the lost history and giving it back to the community in a contemporary form.
Quadrant menu
The project is roughly divided into four plots that overlap each other. These quadrants are defined by a central axis that runs from northwest to southeast, connecting with the residential district through the mall to the metro.
The other axis is a large central plaza, which is an open space for activities and events.
Sport, food, fun and mazes
The plan of Tianjin 4A Sports Park. Photo credit: BAM
Each quadrant of the park takes on a unique programmatic identity:
- The northern quadrant is sports-focussed due to its proximity and connectedness to the residential district to the north.
- The eastern quadrant is where the main food and beverage facilities are. These include a beer garden and outdoor eating areas.
- The food area spills across the axis to the southern quadrant, which is heavily programmed with different forms of play environments.
- The play environment of the southern quadrant connects to the interior family-based programmes of the retail area, and also spills across the central plaza to create an active water feature – the water maze.
- The water maze is one of four mazes that define the western quadrant. The hedge, earth and wood maze areas all interconnect, providing a variety of different maze environments for families to enjoy, with ample onlooking space.
The maze and the journey of learning
The maze has been an integral idea to the design of the park, connecting spatial and thematic aspects of the design together.
Historic Yixing Town was organised around a central temple and “Teacher’s Street”. The ideas of teachers, children and education are all linked to the various programmes of the site, as play and athletics are important aspects in education.
Spatially, the maze echoes the feel of the ancient town with its meandering streets. Symbolically, it represents the journey of learning, reminding visitors that in life everyone continually seeks their own unique path.
Ecological awareness
The ecological impact of the site is very much determined by its size.
BAM’s design attends to the ecological functions of the site, like rainwater collection and flood management, but also the contribution of trees to the reduction of the heat island effect.
Despite dealing with a relatively small site, BAM was able to fit the programmes of a much larger park into a smaller space. As such, the park generates greater awareness of environmental issues through two key features – a geothermal chimney and an interactive hydrological model water feature.
Geothermal heating
The enormous chimney functions as a steam exhaust for the heated water naturally occurring in this region. It was transformed into the park’s brightest highlight – a yellow eye-catcher during the day, and a shimmering watchtower at night.
The “Water Mountain”
Hydrological and technological model of the “Water Mountain”. Photo credit: BAM
An interactive, environmental element is the play a learn “Water Mountain”. This water feature is an interactive hydrology model. It is a miniature of the Yangtze River delta landscape, the Three Gorges Reservoir and the ancient Dujiangyan irrigation system.
Children can activate water sources in the miniature mountains and use dams placed in certain locations along the water’s route to create reservoirs. However, if the water is not carefully managed, it will spill over into other waterways and continue its path to the ocean.
Water as education
On the surface, this water feature reflects the Chinese landscape, agricultural and cultural development, and heritage.
On a deeper level, the design speaks to humanity’s role in the heavy manipulation of the landscape and waterways.
This feature turns an idea, potentially far too big and abstract for a child to comprehend, into a play environment where learning is not didactic, but rather inherent in the play.
Through these types of play, BAM brings awareness to children about big environmental issues in the hope of raising a new generation of people with minds to fix them.
Nature in the urban condition
The play environment of the southern quadrant spills across the central plaza to create the water maze.
One of the fundamental purposes of a park is to connect to human’s inherent desire for what people consider more “natural” environments.
An urban park is as constructed as the skyscrapers and towers of the city centre. It may look green and full of trees and birds, but it is not necessarily nature in the same sense as the nature of the wilderness.
The BAM design team explains that the key is making places where humans can feel at scale with the surrounding environment.
People tend to think of parks and public spaces in terms of green spaces and open lawns, but the reality of a high-density city is that people are in desperate need of high-quality recreational spaces.
Sports as a design language
With Tianjin 4A Sports Park, the studio took its favourite design staples of “sports and patterns” to another level. BAM elevated sports courts of various kinds to become the aesthetic language of the project.
By layering the design with patterns of trees, plants, street furniture and lights, and playfully marking various activity zones with stripes, colours and geometric elements, BAM created a hyper-efficient park that offers something enjoyable for everyone, from young to old.
Tianjin 4A Sports Park is a thought-provoking play with the boundaries of landscape, architecture and the contemporary city – a design pursuit aimed at creating a shared retreat for urbanites.
Project details:
Location: Tianjin, China.
Design area: 42 000m².
Design firm: Ballistic Architecture Machine (BAM).
Scope: Landscape Design.
Client: Sino Ocean.
Photographer: Wu Qingshan.
Acknowledgement and thanks go to www.v2com-newswire.com for the information in this article. For more information, visit bam-land.com or email info@bam-land.com.