Dameisha Ocean Park

Client: Yantian District Government, Shenzhen

Place: Dameisha, China

Date: 2019 Competition, 2^nd Prize

Type: Landscape/ Transport

Area: 20.07 ha

Budget: RMB 370 million / €50 million

AZPML

Alejandro Zaera-Polo, Maider Llaguno-Munitxa, Ivaylo Nachev, Claudia Baquedano, Antonio Treglia, Viviana Dionisio

Local Partner: dS Atelier

Coastal Engineering: DYP Ingenieria, Madrid

Traffic Consultant: MIC, New York

Landscape Consultant: 深圳是高维环境艺术有限公司, Shenzhen

CGI: Dragon Image

Dameisha Beach is the most densely populated beach in the world, to the extent that admission needs to be booked online, free, up to a maximum of 50,000 visitors/day. The project addresses the opportunities provided by the imminent construction of a new subway station connecting the site to Shenzhen City, and the tunnelling of Yanmei Rd. along the waterfront road, to enhance the connectivity between the city and Dameisha Park.

Our proposal for the redevelopment of Dameisha Park aims to a comprehensive landscape proposal to foreground the natural beauty of the site, while integrating the transport and coastal protection infrastructure needed to provide adequate access to the site and to mitigate the growing risks of raising sea levels and typhoons.

COASTAL PROTECTION INFRASTRUCTURE

We propose the implementation of softer coastal protection measures to avoid the disturbance of the beach views through the construction of a submerged breakwater, located 300m from the beach, to diminish the impact of large typhoon waves. This strategy would be complemented by the construction of a submerged beach berm at 100m from the coastline to further reduce the wave impact and the retention of sand.

Vernacular Urban Forests and Palm tree lines along the coastline are proposed as a barrier to counter typhoon waves and winds. Groundcover areas along the beach will increase the ruggedness of the floor and diminish the impact of potential flooding.

The main design concept behind the new Dameisha park is aimed to minimize the visual impact of the facilities, so that the architecture is effectively “camouflaged” in the topography. Small topographical deformations of the park surface will produce the access to the park infrastructure and to the underground transit infrastructure.

All the structures that are not semi-buried will be built with spheroidal geometries and gridshells of different materials: sometimes steel and glass and sometimes bamboo and ETFE, these structures are especially aerodynamic and resilient against wind and waves. Moreover, they are reminiscent of the fishing nets which are part of the Shenzhen traditional industries.

TRANSPORT STRATEGY

The core of our transport strategy relies on providing a large drop-off/pickup infrastructure connected to the new underground facilities on the Yanmei Rd. tunnel level, trying to reduce the parking facilities on site to a bare minimum. 4 exits gathering the flow of the new subway line, the drop-off system and the new underground facility will reach the ground level, reaching a new pedestrian Urban Boulevard, placed over the Yanmei Tunnel.

Because of the visible peaks of traffic in the morning and the evening, arriving or leaving the park, we have designed the subway system so that the arrivals and departures unfold on different levels to streamline the flows in and out of the station.

The departure level has been located at -8,90, below the vehicular tunnel (-0,80), as it is the level that will require the largest amount of space for ticketing and security checks. Entrance turnstiles and ticket dispensers will be located on this level.

The arrival level will take place on the level -14,30, just above the train tunnel. Exit turnstiles will be located at this level on both ends, from where arriving passengers will access the fast drop-off/pickup level at -+1,30 to the parking level/slow drop-off/pickup at -3,50, or to the ground level exits to the new public square above the Yanmei Tunnel and Dameisha Park, through further batteries of escalators and elevators. The underground departure and arrival levels will be naturally through vertical courtyards which will bring daylight and vegetation from the park level.

The “Green Finger,” an elevated pedestrian walkway connecting the Regional transit hub with Dameisha Park will be built using a tubular structure containing the elevated walkway above a continuous planter which will sustain creepers to wrap around the bridge and provide shade for those who prefer to do a 10min walk between the parking facilities and the beach.

PARK CIRCULATION AND Landscape Strategies

Given that the border of the Park will be redefined to increase the Park surface, we propose to redesign the fencing system to make the border of the park as transparent as possible, to enhance the visual connection between the city and the park. We propose to use wire mesh which is also reminiscent of the fishing nets which are part of the traditional economies in the Shenzhen area.

Given the massive flows of people in and out of the Park we distinguished the exit gates from the entrance gates to avoid conflicting flows of people at peak times. Flow loops have been designed around the proposed green areas in the park, linking the two entrance gates with exit gates on each side of the entrances.

Our landscape proposal is based on the addition of substantial amounts of vegetation as an environmental regulator that absorbs water and provides solar protection. We aim to increase substantially the biomass production in the park by removing asphalt surfaces and other impervious pavements from the area, while providing opportunities to increase the absorption of water in the ground, stabilizing the ground and increasing the carbon storage. Water retention ponds will be added as a landscape feature, but also to contribute to the treatment of stormwater and greywater through biofiltration. These are strategies which align with the broad principles of the sponge city initiative.

The multiple strategies in respect to the increase of biomass production and water retention in the park surface is proposed as a sequence of 3 differentiated landscape layers/ecotopes of vernacular plant species, which integrate between city and nature in multiple ways, and will gradate the future interface between the urban fabric and the beach:

THE URBAN BOULEVARD

The Urban Boulevard will be located right above the tunnel of Yanmei Rd., at +7,30. The Boulevard will produce a much better connection between the urban fabric and Dameisha Park, by raising the level of the ground 1.5m above the current level, to level the ground with the grounding of the hotel developments, North of Yanmei Rd. A hard paving of grey local limestone will be covered with a green canopy will provide multiple opportunities for different scenarios of urban life, from spontaneous public performances to the delivery of street food.

THE URBAN FOREST

The second layer of landscape will be formed by a series of green islands of a large size, reproducing vernacular forest and featuring water-retention ponds. The forest patches will become a new layer in the park, which extends the condition that exists already on the Western end of Dameisha. The Urban Forest areas are proposed as a gentle topography of mounds and depressions which will serve to provide access to the semi-buried services or cover over the two exits from the underground transport infrastructure.

These patches of urban green will constitute a discontinuous layer of accessible green areas where vernacular species of trees and groundcovers will improve the local microclimate along the park edge, providing shadow to the visitors, acting as a micro-climate regulator, retaining water, cooling and humidifying the environment through evapotranspiration and providing a shaded environment for the visitors.

Within the Vernacular Forest areas, we will install a system of bioswales and retention ponds, able to manage the stormwater and the grey waters from the park. The new infrastructure of toilets and showers will be located in proximity to the bioswales with the intention of reusing greywaters in the maintenance of the landscape. The bioswales will act as biofilters of the greywaters released by these facilities.

The circulation of the park will be built entirely with a timber deck running across the whole length of the park, which will be connecting all the access and exit points around the Forest patches. The timber deck will avoid the overheating of lithic or impervious pavements currently installed on the park.

PALM TREES IN THE SAND

The last ecosystem layer consists in planting rows of palm trees on the sandy beach. The roots of the palm trees will contribute to stabilize the sand on the beach, reducing erosion and provide sunshade for people sitting on the sand below the trees. In the event of a typhoon, the Palm trees will act as a barrier reducing the wave energy, acting as safety net for objects carried by the wind and the waves, and increasing the ruggedness of the ground to prevent flooding.

Beach infrastructure will be distributed along the coastline consistently with an overall concept of spheroidal bamboo gridshells, covered with ETFE to make them as transparent as possible. The spheroidal geometry of the pods will diminish their visual impact while making them resilient to the onset of typhoon winds and waves.