Shenzhen Bay East Extension, Shenzhen, China

Shenzhen Bay Avenue presents a unique opportunity to create the foundations of an open space system crucial to shaping its future urban fabric beyond imagination and brimming with unexplored potential; it will create destinations for the community to enjoy a contemporary connective landscape rooted in the culture of South China's diverse community to promote a healthy and sustainable lifestyle.

Shenzhen Bay Avenue will become a living sensorium of tactile experiences, full of fun and discovery and special events where rich and happy memories will be created as part of the wider landscape framework, developed in accordance with the UN Sustainable Development Goals to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all -

1. The community jewel in Shenzhen's wider green infrastructure network;
2. Creating a new lifestyle as a living system, a journey from urban to nature; and
3. A world-class destination brimming with unexplored potential, celebrating culture in the heart of the city.

The design celebrates the vision of ' City-Culture-Bay' to create a coherent ensemble of interconnected elevated walkways, linked by escalators and stairs to a lively streetscape and basement level civic realm. The route passes through three distinct zones, from the central business district through to a new cultural quarter and onto a landscaped park at the Bay. The design will become an ensemble of animated places, as a series of destinations along its linear route, framed with new commercial and cultural buildings.

Key urban spaces include a transport interchange with links to two subway stations, a sunken plaza and Platform Park, envisaged as a calm space amid the hustle and bustle of the city. Retail has been incorporated within two extensive basement levels along the Avenue where the multi-layered landscape brings light and shade to create dramatic internal spaces, connected through vertical circulation nodes as part of the integrated wayfinding strategy. The core spaces encourage interaction and collaboration through social setting, a platform for social learning as important as focused formal innovation and creativity.

This unique masterplan represents a significant investment to deliver a strong linear public space with the flexibility to allow the city to breathe, develop, grow and adapt to changing social, technological and economic conditions, holistically integrating landscape architecture, urban design and architecture.