blog: Shenzhen Xiangmihu Transport Masterplan
Tuesday 4th June 2019
ITP recently supported McGregor Coxall in developing an innovative masterplan strategy for an urban renewal scheme of a 4.9km2 area in the Xiangmihu district of Shenzhen, China, as part of an International Urban Design Competition commissioned by Shenzhen’s Urban Planning, Land & Resources Commission.
The brief sought a world-class benchmark in urban planning to strengthen Shenzhen’s regional role within the Pearl River Delta urban area, which includes Guangdong, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as promoting Shenzhen’s technological innovation, city cooperation, and financial growth.
Creating dynamic neighbourhoods
We produced a comprehensive transport strategy to support the development of a mixed-use district with a daytime population of c. 400,000. Our strategy presents an intelligent and responsive multi-modal transport network that supports dense and dynamic neighbourhoods to enable liveability, civic pride and a low carbon economy, whilst fully integrating the district into the regional transport network, including high speed rail, metro, airports and port.
We worked collaboratively within a multi-disciplinary team to ensure the transport system, urban form, and landscape cohesively support sustainable and enjoyable lifestyles. Core to our proposals is a denser street design with revolutionary (for China) street typologies that hold most road space for walking/cycling and public transport priority with near zero on-street parking. The streets are designed to become ‘destinations’ in themselves.
The street arrangement supports walkable neighbourhoods and a dense public transport network that greatly reduces reliance on the car to achieve a mode share target of 55% walking and cycling and 35% travelling by public transport.
Direct walking and cycling connections are provided to key services, civic parks, metro and high-speed rail stations such as Futian Station, for the new Hong Kong high speed rail. It also integrates with strategic walking and cycling routes to provide long distance routes to the Deep Bay waterfront and mountains.
Integrating land-use and transport planning
A comprehensive and dense bus network was developed to enable all locations to be situated within 200m of a bus line; these routes are integrated with new metro stations to provide strategic connectivity. A supportive green freight strategy and parking strategy were also developed along with smart city technologies to enhance the functionality of the area to ensure high quality public realm and bio-city themes are met. This integrated approach to land-use and transport planning enabled the team to produce a cohesive design which ensured that sustainable access and movement was fully assimilated into the development proposals throughout the process.
The masterplan for Xiangmihu district establishes a new financial district, tech hubs, retail, commercial and residential neighbourhoods through a diverse mix of density and land use and open space, strengthening Shenzhen’s role within the greater bay area and setting a global bench mark in sustainable future cities.
If you'd like to find out more about the international projects that ITP have worked on please get in touch with our Chairman and International Director, Colin Brader.
Photo credit: McGregor Coxall