On September 29th,the jury review conference of “NaTian Cup” International Design Competition was held in Suqian City Exhibition Center successfully held. A total of around 1000 design teams from more than 40 countries and districts enrolled in the competition, and finally,46 outstanding design works selected by the Jury committee enter the final winners list, including 1 First Prize, 3 Second Prizes, 5 Third prizes, 13 Honorable Mentions and 23 Finalists. Chen Changjie and Hong Zhengyan from School of architecture and urban planning, Tongji University come out on top, their work is “镜树/NATURAL MIRRORS”.

Visiting the Santaishan National Park Natian Flower Farm

Jury member group photo ©UED

In the morning,Jury members went to the site of the competition——Santaishan National Park Natian Flower Farm，Fang Qingzhong, party secretary and director of Suqian Planning Bureau, Hu Zhihua, chief planner and senior researcher of Suqian Planning Bureau, led and introduce the site condition to the juries.

Natian flower farm ©Yu Kongjian

Openning ceremony of the Jury Review

Opening ceremony of Jury review ©UED

After the site visiting, the Jury Review was officially opened, presided over by Chief editor Liu Qing from Urban Environment Design (UED) Magazine. Wang Tianqi, Deputy Secretary and Mayer of Suqian, Vicente Guallart, Spanish Barcelona's former chief architect, co-founder of Catalonia School of architecture, chief architect and founder of Vicente Guallart Architect respectively gave an opening speech.

Review in process ©UED

Mayor Wang Tianqi, director Fang Qingzhong at the review exhibition hall ©UED

After four rounds of intense review process, the jury group selected out the final winners, Vicente Guallart confirmed and announced the awards results, all the judges signed review resolutions and made comments on the winning works as an encourage.

Group photo of present guests and professional designers ©UED

Award List

Congratulations to all the winners!

First Prize：镜树/ NATURAL MIRRORS
Team：School of architecture and urban planning, Tongji University
Group Member：Chen Changjie、Hong Zhengyan

First Prize：镜树/NATURAL MIRRORS ©Chen Changjie、Hong Zhengyan

The project makes the most appropriate response to Natian Flower Farm on respecting its historical environment, forming a new symbol while being integrated with the surroundings. Therefore, it provides a visual focus for the passers-by and a natural signpost. And this landmark allows people to go towards it while wandering on the long trestle bridge, like a beacon on the sea, which points out the direction and serves as a post over the voyage on the ocean as well. The tower brings a view high-above at the same time. The people will gain a commemorative experience going over long bridge above the pond. And they’ll feel the ambience formed by the reflections of the sky, the land, and the water by the torsions of the construction. With breeze blowing, the twisting and weaving of the landscapes vary like a kaleidoscope. The scenery’s scattered, vivid, and lively at the time. The observers, the sky and the lands are well assimilated, providing a sense of floating. This feeling will last until people get the top of the tower. When they stand on the platform sticking out, the sea of flowers, the sky, and the running water suddenly become an ensemble again, but it is different after the previous dynamic ablutions and the superlative view brought by heights. It’s more of a tranquility and great shock.

“NaTian Cup” International Design Competition

First ‘Naian’ Cup International Competition for Sustainable Design was initiated jointly by Suqian Municipal Government, Suqian Planning Bureau, and CBC (China Building Centre). Last year, several urban regeneration projects have taken place in Suqian through utilizing plantation elements from traditional Chinese culture. This year, Suqian Government intends to take the urban projects to the next level.

The competition will be based on Axis between the Luoma Lake and the Santaishan National Park that included the Naian Flower Farm, investigating into the cultural, functional and representation of public spaces. The competition invites projects from both domestic and international studios, designers, artist and students. Proposals should be designs of urban icons, sculptures, landscape art, buildings, installations that are integrated into and responding to the status of development in the selected area. Participants will be able to choose the location and the subject for their proposal. Though there is no limit with the budget for the construction, the design should be constructible. Several winner proposals selected by the jury panel could be built subjecting to the city’s regulation.

Theme of the Competition

Identity for the Sustainable Design

The selected sites, the Shanshui Green Corridor and NaTian Flower arm, are located on the Axis between the Luoma Lake and the NaTian Flower Farm in Suqian. The prime location is a great opportunity for designers to imagine the city of the future based in ecological principles. Suqian as many Chinese cities are facing a new era for their development base in the idea of urban regeneration, landscape preservation and sustainable development. The site is a unique landscape that every year manifest the beauty of nature with their impressive colors and the biodiversity explosion. And that’s why rethinking how the city can extended the benefits of the beauty of that phenomena in time, and to integrate all the natural cycles in their urban life is a challenge from which many cities can learn.

List of Jury Members

Jury Chairman
Vicente Guallart
Former Chief Architect of Barcelona; co-founder of the Institute for Advanced Architecture of Catalonia and founder of Guallart Architects; a leading global figure in relation to projects and theories for urban development and technology innovation internationally.

Jury Members
Wang Jianguo
Members of the Chinese Academy of Engineering; the Director of Urban Design Research Institute of Southeast University; Professor, Doctoral Supervisor of the School of Architecture, Southeast University

Martha Schwartz
Famous International Landscape Architect; Tenure Professor of Harvard Graduate School of Design

Alexei Novikov
Dean of Graduate School of Urbanology in National Research University "Higher School of Economics"; Founder of Habidatum; Specialist of Urban Data; Urban Science expert

Zhuang Weimin
Dean of School of Architecture, Tsinghua University; Head and Chief Architect of Architectural Design and Research Institute of Tsinghua University

Caroline Bos
Famous Architect and Urban Planner in the Netherlands; Co-founder and Chief Urban Planner of UNStudio

Yu Kongjian
American Academy of Arts and Sciences; Dean, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of School of Architecture and Landscape, Peking University

Li Zhenyu
Dean of the College of Architecture and Urban Planning, Tongji University

Yuan Dachang
Party Secretary, Professor and Doctoral Supervisor of School of Architecture, Tianjin University

Sun Yimin
Dean of School of Architecture, South China University of Technology; Changjiang Scholar Distinguished Professor; National Famous Educator

Peng Lixiao
Chief Editor of Urban Environment Design (UED) Magazine; Guest Professor of the School of Architecture, Tianjin University; Director of China Building Centre

Feng Zhenggong
Chairman of ARTS Group Co, Ltd

Hu Zhihua
Chief planner, research fellow and senior engineer，Suqian Planning Bureau of Jiangsu Province

Guests present
Wang Tianqi
Deputy secretary and mayor of Suqian

Zhang Wei
Secretary General of Suqian municipal government

Luo Zhihong
Deputy Secretary General of Suqian municipal government

Zhang Wei
Deputy Secretary General of Suqian municipal government

Fang Qingzhong
Secretary and head of the Party committee of Suqian Planning Bureau

Sponsor Media
Liu Qing
Executive editor, Urban Environment and Design (UED)