Super Green Road (SGR)

Lai'an

What is the city of the future? How will our park systems tie into the urban planning? How can we begin to create a new idea of public space for our cities of tomorrow?

BAM developed the idea of the SUPER GREEN ROAD with a leading developer in China with the scale and experience to accomplish planning of new cities. It works something like this. Average new cities are dedicating 8 % of their total new areas to green space. In a typical city these green zones are sprinkled around the city in order to make them accessible to the many inhabitants in all of the districts. The center of each city usually contains the largest green area and often has cultural programs attached.

BAM saw this as an opportunity. We said what if we can create a large loop within the overall city plan that connects and links these green nodes like a necklace—(not dissimilar to Olmsted’s parkway in Buffalo or Boston.) But because today’s cities are not just about traditional green spaces for public areas, we also tie it into retail zones and plazas. By linking all of these public spaces together we form a large scale public landscape. The SUPER GREEN ROAD.

But the SUPER GREEN ROADs goal is to transcend the large-scale planning issues and create a sensation of detail, of humanness that connects the inhabitants of the new city. So we use a fractal idea, wherein the largest loop plugs into town level loops. Town level parks connect to town plazas within the larger city loop. And it doesn’t stop there---we also envision a smaller scale in the fractal, the community loop, where within a single community the public space will have its own nodes and connect to the larger scales.

How can we implement a fractal idea in the overall planning of the landscape? For BAM it was the observation that in a good walk outside we should have certain elements. A trash can. A light, trees. Etc. Older people should be able to sit down and rest every minute of walking. Dogs need space to run. Kids need playgrounds. Public needs bathrooms. Communities need green spaces. Towns need parks. Schools need sports facilities.

BAM developed a model to start to locate the important programs on the super green road necklace as a piece of infrastructure.

After modelling out these programs and repeating them in loops, we started to see overlaps. Seniors can rest in areas that kids play. Sports can be combined near the commercial zones. This efficiency created a public space that was multifunctional and operated in different ways at different times of day.

THE SUPER GREEN ROAD concept was developed in a model city, but also BAM has had the chance to test out the SUPER GREEN ROAD on real cities that are on the drawing boards. The lucky city of the three cities BAM has had the chance to work with for the SUPER GREEN ROAD that is starting construction is occurring just north of Nanjing in Lai’an Anhui.

All planning begins with an ecological basis. For BAM the GIS overlay of the local hydrology indicated which regions of the urban plan should remain as important watersheds and river corridors. With the city planners and the ecological consultants BAM devised a large SUPER GREEN ROAD loop that activated riverside park and wetlands zones, connecting theme into a large public space network!. WOW!

But in some zones there was no ecological basis for designing a park. This is the zone where bam started from, to create a 2km link between the natural ecological river zones. So for BAM the SUPER GREEN ROAD exercise was creating an urban public space link which would connect people from their homes, schools, shopping areas, to the ecological recreational zones.

Because this entire city was unbuilt at the time of design BAM used the planning ideas and the developers vision for the area to organize SUPER GREEN ROAD programs that enhance the surrounding plots. Residential plots have gateway entrances into the biking and walking paths. Adjacent to school areas we include playgrounds. We create places for older people to rest or socialize at close distances to their living areas. Near commercial zones we create plazas and sports grounds, louder more active programs.

But the LAIAN SUPER GREEN ROAD is built for the future. We have imagined the occupancy of the town once built and built out for them programs to suit the future population size. At the moment we only see a small portion of the SUPER GREEN ROAD. These are only 2 plots—BAM has completed the DD drawings for the first SEVEN!!! Wow!

One of the amazing parts of the SUPER GREEN ROAD landscape is that it is already working even though there are not really houses nearby. Kids from the adjacent school spill out onto the playgrounds. The local construction workers nap in the shade created areas. While this public space is still forming it can support a great range of activities already.