• Henan’s Ancient City Gets Floodproofed with Ecological Foresight

    18 July 2025

    In a flood-prone city rooted in mythology, Turenscape defies expectations with a crater-island dreamscape engineered to absorb, cleanse, and reconnect. This is landscape architecture as infrastructure, heritage, and survival. Welcome to Huaiyang’s watery revolution.

    Mythology Meets Modern Resilience

    The Huaiyang Fuxi Cultural Park is located in Huaiyang District, Zhoukou, eastern Henan Province, China. Bordering Anhui, Zhoukou lies near Zhumadian, Kaifeng, and Shangqiu, and is celebrated as the legendary birthplace of Fuxi. It’s home to the Taihao Mausoleum, a key heritage site. The park sits beside Dragon Lake, a flood-prone zone now transformed into a resilient wetland.

    Covering 43 hectares, Huaiyang Fuxi Cultural Park showcases flood-resilient urban design inspired by sponge city principles and ancient Chinese cosmology. Turenscape reused 860,000 cubic meters of site material to sculpt crater-islands modelled after Bagua and constellation maps. These islands serve as multifunctional public spaces—amphitheatres, gardens, sports courts, and winter recreation zones.

    A solar-powered bio-treatment system filters 11,500 tons of water daily through constructed wetlands. Poplars and willows, echoing ancient folk songs, culturally and ecologically anchor the landscape. Designed by Dr. Kongjian Yu, Turenscape’s philosophy blends environmental survival with heritage and human scale.

    Huaiyang, shaped by centuries of Yellow River floods and challenged by modern urban sprawl, needed radical renewal. Dragon Lake, the region’s flood buffer, had been compromised by development. The solution: a sponge city park that embraces water instead of resisting it.

    At its heart are crater-shaped islands formed from recycled on-site debris, creating a poetic network of public spaces that reflect Bagua cosmology and ancient star maps. These islands are rich in function—amphitheatres, playgrounds, gardens, sport courts, fountains, and art installations. In winter, the terrain transforms into a venue for skiing and skating.

    Filtering the Future: Wetlands at Work

    Ambitious in scale yet logical in execution, the park’s bio-treatment wetlands purify over 11,500 tons of water daily from the lake and city. A regulated boardwalk system threads through the landscape like a neural network, connecting areas seamlessly. The lack of rails—combined with safe water depths—encourages intimate interaction with nature through trust in design.

    But this isn’t superficial sustainability. Turenscape’s ethos, “Nature, Man, and Spirits as One”—is rooted in decades of practice and political advocacy. Spearheaded by Harvard-educated Dr. Kongjian Yu, the firm has executed over 1,000 projects in 250 cities, championing sponge urbanism and “negative planning” long before climate urgency became mainstream. Yu’s accolades include the Oberlander Prize, the IFLA Sir Geoffrey Jellicoe Award, and membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has redefined landscape architecture as an “art of survival.”

    Huaiyang Park embodies survival, of culture, ecology, and a city’s rhythm in the face of environmental collapse. With native poplars and willows evoking folk songs of millennia past, the park harmonizes function and folklore. it sets a new standard for urban space, where ecology leads and the landscape becomes a living system of resilience and renewal.

    About the Designer

    Established in 1998, Turenscape is acknowledged as a pioneering, government-accredited first-level design institute. With a dynamic team of over 500 experts, they specialize in architecture, landscape architecture, and urbanism, and are committed to delivering exceptional and holistic design solutions.

    More Living
    Past Perfect – Reinventing the Grandeur of Old Europe
    High ceilings, peeling parquet, and forgotten mouldings, ARRCC’s Michele Rhoda sees not relics, but potential. Across Europe, classic apartments are being recut for the now: minimal, luminous, intimate. This isn’t restoration so much as reimagination. In the heart of Barcelona, nestled between shadowy alleyways and sweeping boulevards, a quiet design revolution is unfolding behind ornate [...]
    Pocket-Sized, Future-Minded – This Lunar-Inspired Laneway Dwelling Reimagines Suburban Space
    Clinging delicately to a helical steel leg and floating above a carport in Toronto’s dense laneway network, the Pocket Laneway House by Weiss Architecture & Urbanism Limited is more than a modest accessory dwelling. It’s a genre-defying micro-home for the modern age, playful in form, precise in execution and grounded in sustainability. Photography: Exterior – Birdhouse Media [...]
    Reclaimed & Refined: A Thai Industrial Legacy Reimagined
    In the lush heart of Chiang Mai, where the past lingers in the scent of old brick and the rustle of ancient trees, a former tobacco processing estate breathes new life as the Kaomai Museums and Tea Barn. Once a proud industrial centrepiece of the local community, this sixty-eight-year-old relic has been reborn through the visionary lens of Bangkok-based PAVA architects, fusing conservation [...]
    Brühl’s Town Hall Extension Champions Civic Life, Sustainability and Innovation with Future-Facing Design
    In the heart of Brühl’s historic centre, a bold architectural intervention by JSWD transforms the town hall into a beacon of modern civic life. Melding heritage restoration with sustainable innovation, the project breathes new life into community space through light, form, and thoughtful function. Brühl has unveiled its newly transformed City Hall and municipal library—a bold [...]
    Mirrorballs, Mic Drops, and Molecules: Scottsdale’s Interactive Art Went Full Send
    In November 2024, Molecules by Brooklyn-based design studio The Urban Conga transformed the Scottsdale Waterfront into a vibrant, interactive light-scape as part of the Canal Convergence festival. Known for their playful, community-driven work, designers Ryan Swanson and Maeghann Coleman delivered an installation that felt both futuristic and deeply human. uspended above the canal were five [...]
    Qiantan International Plaza, Shanghai’s Premier New Business Address
    Qiantan International Plaza, a sleek 130-meter-tall office tower located in the Qiantan International Business District in Shanghai, seamlessly integrates modern workspaces with lifestyle amenities, offering panoramic views, green spaces, and dynamic commercial areas, making it a premier business and lifestyle destination. Developed by Lujiazui Group, Qiantan International Plaza is the newest [...]
    Reading Mi, Zhuhai, with Interior design by PANORAMA Design Group
    The 1,200 square metre. Reading Mi, Zhuhai. for Shenzhen Friendship Book City Co., Ltd., was completed in Jan 2025. Photographer: POPO VISION, GD Media. “Reading Mi覔” was established in 1991 in China and now a highly regarded chain bookstore brand. As a unique cultural space, each bookstore is not merely a place for selling books; rather, it offers customers a rich experience through [...]
    Jinji Pavilion Unveiled on the Shores of Jinji Lake in Suzhou
    Recently, BIG completed the Jinji Pavilion, a 1200-square-meter space located on the shores of Jinji Lake in Suzhou, China. This pavilion serves as an ideal venue for public gatherings and receptions and is one of 11 planned permanent stations, forming an important part of Suzhou’s effort to create a vibrant and attractive lakeside promenade. The project was jointly designed by BIG and [...]
    I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture travels to Power Station of Art in Shanghai
    (11 April 2025, Hong Kong) M+, Asia’s global museum of contemporary visual culture in the West Kowloon Cultural District (WestK) in Hong Kong, is pleased to announce that its critically acclaimed Special Exhibition I. M. Pei: Life Is Architecture will travel to Power Station of Art (PSA) in Shanghai from Saturday, 26 April to Sunday, 27 July 2025. The exhibition will continue to tour [...]