James Corner Visits USC

James Corner, the designer of New York's Highline Park, was here at USC this Wednesday to lecture about his recent works. His recent work includes the Planning of the Qianhai Region of Shenzen, which was awarded First Prize for its International Competition. His design envisions a new "Water City" for 1.5 million people in Shenzen. The design will manipulate the water (the most important resource of the area) to purify and revitalize its quality. The city will embrace the water as its strong identity. The five "water fingers" will create large public parks and water filtering infrastructures, including all of the storm-water runoffs. Through the levels of natural filtrations of rocks, marshlands, and plants, water will be purified in different stages from primary treatment to secondary treatment to tertiary treatment until it is discharged and reused for clean water for marine culture to grow. While treating the water, the city will be hosting gardens and large public parks for better living. The city will also have water park for tourists.

China is developing its urban areas with sustainable solutions, and it will be interesting to see how it will look like in 20-30 years. In 20-30 years, I wonder how our urban cities like London, Paris and New York would look like compared to cities in China like Shenzen, Shanghai, and Beijing which are in many ways already far ahead (or striving to be much more advanced in the next couple of years).

View this 10 min video explaining the Planning of the Qianhai Region of Shenzen.