Design Manifesto

Between rapid urbanization and industrialization, China is facing a problem between the contradictions of old and new. The old urban spaces and traditional buildings are being replaced with new urban planning and architecture design. Contemporary public landscape design also faces challenges — how to extend green network, rebuild ecosystems and create ecologically rich values by creating public landscape and the concept of green infrastructure in highly developed cities? It is still a long way for China to develop an environmental-friendly ecosystem that in harmony with public space. Great changes have taken place in China, especially in the last ten years. However, people in urban area are not feeling as comfort as before, even they have modern transportation, more entertaining choice, more high-tech electronic devices. Increasing population put more pressure on people’s life, people lived in one-floor houses, slow life pace let people chatting in their neighborhoods, they could ride a bicycle take children to a nearby park. The changes in the last 10 years were fast, people even didn't have time to adapt to new life. There were no research and debate before a place is built. Landscape in China can simply regard as square, those squares look the same, no function, no maintains. That is because most of the projects are designed by people who don't have landscape architecture background.  These people treat landscape as “outdoor gardening”, putting some benches, planting some trees are the central idea of design the open space. That is the common picture in China right now. 

Born and grew up in Nanjing, the southern capital of China, I always suffer in the new development in the city during the past few years. I miss the time I can walk on the great walls which are build in the Ming dynasty, I miss time I can watch the blue sky and breath the fresh air, I miss the time I ride a bike go to every small corner of the old city to take a picture. I want change the environment we live, I have a strong feeling to let people know my city not from the 7th tallest building in the world, not from the olympic, not from the fast GDP number. I think the city should preserve the traditional space, at time same time, explore the value of the history to make a harmony environment for the city. Before in college, I read an article about contemporary urban development, landscape architecture was mentioned at the article, even landscape was quite unfamiliar to me, I was attracted by this new subject. Different from chemistry or physics, I feel landscape is something I can handle to change our living environment immediately.  Not like mathematics, landscape architecture have numerous ways to solve one problem, it has a broad range of knowledge concerning to other subjects and it will never stop at some point. This subject is new, and can encourage or inspire people to pursue a better life quality. That is way I made my mind to study this subject.

Cities we see today are the results of centuries of the natural process and human interaction. Urban spaces are constantly changing and evolving, along with the expansion of human civilization. Time, space and culture have tremendous impacts on landscape. During the process of urban evolvement, city’s park and open space carry an important responsibility. In my opinion, the cities will not only adapt to changes, but also have the opportunity to reshape the existing landscape condition and guide the city to new direction. As landscape designers, we have our duty to the society, to next generation. We are not just designing, we may find a solution to change the situation where is wrong and expect next 10, 20, 50 years what the world gonna be. However, in China, because of the politic situation, designers are like machines facing to computers everyday. I have been working in a designing company for almost one year, at that time, I feel lost about my work, even my future. I was so bored about the work, people who have money or power can always manipulate my design, those people know nothing about landscape architecture, they just pursue something looks beautiful, something can create the most economic benefits. The best thing or maybe the worst, is money never become a problem, they can afford to dig a big lake. Those designs are not allow designers have long time to analyze, do some research, we stay up late every night for the project and it always comes a lot of problem. Nobody thinks the spirit of design in the company, it is hard for me to stick on my dream to change the city. 

With more foreign landscape companies come into China, and more people educated from western country, new landscape theory and technology have changing people’s attitude about landscape. I can see the trend for the future landscape design, that is why I came to America to study. Kong Jianyu and his Turenscape company were leading in Chinese new landscape development, their design make urban spaces and landscapes that creates atmospheres and sensuous experiences, that focus on the sense of quality, and that make people wonder. Those new designs always mix Chinese tradition and the sustainable ecosystem theory from western countries, when I saw these new design I felt landscape architecture like a magic, it has a power for me to explore and push me go further and further. For designers, we must concentrate more carefully on the effect of our designs, the property of our designs, the about the design itself—like detail, form, shape, etc. The atmosphere and the quality of the context are more based on sensuous experiences, on time, and on the physical body, than on the exact physical expression of a site. And to enhance this view into our cities is, to me, the job as a landscape architect.