The consortium of NL Urban Solutions participated the international competition for the overall conceptual planning and design of Blueway around Xili Reservoir

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From March to July 2021, the international competition for the overall conceptual planning and design of Blueway around Xili Reservoir was held by Shenzhen of Water Resources Bureau. The consortium consisting of NL Urban Solutions, Lingnan Design Institute and Power East China Design Institute was selected as one of the 6 top tenders to participate in this competition. This is the second time that the consortium has worked together, they won first prize for the competition of Chishi river urban planning and design together in the last collaboration.

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Xili Reservoir is located in Xili Science and Education City, Shenzhen. It is one of the most important drinking water sources of Shenzhen. Moreover, Xili Science and Education City is the future talent highland of Shenzhen. The design focused on exploring how to make use of the chance of blueway construction to enrich the landscape ecological system, catalyze the organic village renewal, and attract innovative talents and research-oriented enterprises to gather under the development opportunity of Xili International Science and Education City. Xili area will continue its great mission of water sources protection zone, and become an innovative highland for academic research in Shenzhen and a model for the integration of ecological protection and urban development, which creates a unique landscape scenery.

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Based on the solid investigation and analysis of the existing situation, and according to the different locations, contexts, hydrological status and future development functions of seven blueways, the design team proposed three different design strategies and toolkits for the north and south parts of Xili Lake. By using the three strategies of Coherent & Connected landscape framework, Enrich ecology, Attractive place-making, they resolve the problems of poor connection with landscapes of mountain and lake, weak accessibility and experience, and traditional village industry in the Xili area, reshaping the role of landscape of mountain-sea in Nanshan District, breeding natural vitality, aggregating humanistic charm and creating a sensible, accessible playable and healthy landscape experience area. They also helped the organic renewal of the three villages of the water source with the new positioning of the southern gateway of Yangtai Mountain.

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