Tianjin Sino-Singapore Friendship Park

In May 2017, landscape architect Grant Associates won an international competition to create a new 41-hectare city park for Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City (TJEC) in northern China.

Occupying a central location in Tianjin Eco-City on the Gu Dao Canal, the vision for Friendship Park is for a park that welcomes visitors of all ages, celebrating the friendship between China and Singapore, and embodying the principles of sustainability.

Grant Associates’ masterplan aims to translate these ideas onto site by interlocking contrasting landscapes and characters - like water and land, nature and city - while maintaining a unity in the design with a continuous landform.

Grant Associates Singapore will lead the design of the park with a phased masterplan that proposes a Conservatory of five glass biomes housing tropical plant collections and water gardens. Other key elements include a wetland centre, an urban dock, play areas, an event lawn and an amphitheatre.

Initiated in 2008, Tianjin Eco-City is a bilateral project between China and Singapore intended to create a blueprint for the development of sustainable cities. The basic infrastructure for Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City is complete and the first residents moved in during 2012. When completed in around 2020, the eco-city will house up to 350,000 people in a low-carbon, green environment that already ranks as the world’s largest eco-city.

The park’s landscape is crafted out of an understanding of the inhospitable nature of the site, which is currently barren. Exposed to north-west winds and with a saline soil, the aspiration is to establish a sheltered park environment, which will be enjoyable throughout the year. Ridges in the northern reaches of the site will protect people and nature from the prevailing winter winds.

At the centre of the park is the Conservatory; five biomes that will provide year-round shelter and interest, enclosing a series of gardens and wetland spaces.

Stefaan Lambreghts, associate at Grant Associates, said:

“Friendship Park is a hugely exhilarating and ambitious project. Our vision is to create a sustainable, playful and life enhancing landscape alongside inspiring architecture. Together this will provide a rich variety of spaces in which people can come together to play and learn, and have fun.

“The park symbolises many things. It represents the close relationship between China and Singapore, as well as the connection between people and nature, land and water, shelter and exposure. Friendship Park will exemplify the vital role of public parks in providing space for people of all ages to enjoy a rich variety of experiences with nature.”

Content and images courtesy of Grant Associates.

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