SWA San Francisco received an Honor Award in the Planning and Analysis Category for ‘Nanhu: Farm Town in the Big City’. An integrated master plan that considers agriculture, villages, waterways and public landscapes “Nanhu will be a hybrid development combining China’s agricultural heritage with its present urban lifestyle. ” Read more at the ASLA award site, and below:
“Sprawling megacities around the world are overtaking arable land to accommodate increased spatial demands. The larger these cities become, the further agricultural landscapes are forced away from the people they sustain. This project brings innovative hybrid agricultural and urban typologies into close dialogue at the crux of two major metropolitan cities. An infrastructural overhaul will treat heavily polluted water as it flows through the site, and will establish a new paradigm for modern agricultural living.
The design challenges the notion of typical rural-to-urban land transformation to instead create a model for integrated new city development. The design takes advantage of the site’s agrarian economy, proximity to transit, and urban amenities to create a village that is compact, walkable, and tightly-knit, yet has easy access to open space and maintains an agricultural character.”
Posted by EllenBurke in Performance Planning, Urban Agriculture on