CHROFI together with the Kann Finch Group joined the Waterman International Consortium to participate in an urban design competition for the Binhai New Area Masterplan (Binhai New City). The project involves the planning of a city for 3 million people on the east coast of China near the key cities of Beijing and Tianjin. The site is bisected by the Haihe River and brings together existing centres that include Tianjin Port, Teda and Tanggu across an area of 53km2.
The proposal was selected as the winner.
As for any new city in the 21st Century, two core issues needed to be addressed - Globalisation and the Environment. Our approach tackles both of these creating a city with a ‘quality of life’ that, in accordance with the international indicators, would effectively create a place where people would want to live.
Our vision for Binhai New City is the creation of a city that is internationally renowned as a port, a centre for innovation, research and development, and a centre for business. Binhai will have a high-density, highly connected urban core that is both commercially sustaining in itself, and supportive to the local industry and port operations.
The new city has the Haihe River at its core, drawing upon the unique visual and curvilinear spatial amenity of the river environment. In contrast with this however, is the strong axial ordering of the urban form creating a dynamic relationship between the man-made city and the natural river system. Synergetic relationships are formed also with the development of new centres including a ‘Manhattan’ style central business district, that are networked with the existing centres of Tanggu and TEDA.
New mass public transit systems boost the connectivity of the city and drive the development of a more connected, integrated an energy efficient society. The city will have low scale residential villages of 4-8 storeys with a local character but give way to areas of heightened urban activity at the key urban nodes.
In addition, the city extents are contained by vast ecological buffer zones that maintain an ecological equilibrium for the region and provide ecological recreation national parks.
