Introduction
Nantou Ancient Town is located at the end of Shennan Avenue in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, presenting a street pattern of “six verticals and one horizontal”. This is the only historical and cultural carrier in Shenzhen, as well as a valuable relic of the ancient Lingnan culture. It has witnessed the changes of Shenzhen since the Eastern Jin Dynasty and is considered to be the “root of Shenzhen-Hong Kong history and culture”.
Reason to Be Selected
At the end of the road, the gate square suddenly opened up. The designer set a boundary for the square in the form of barbican. The square was on the side of the gate, and the foundation of the wall was excavated as a historical relic, surrounded by guardrails for tourists to watch. The sharp contrast of the inside and outside were dissolved by the green plants on the wall. The soft light diffused on the city wall, making the gate itself a cultural relic exhibit.
Highlights:
The memorial archway is the entrance to South Gate Square. According to the existed road on the site, the designers narrowed the open space on the south side into a linear space leading to the ancient town. And the existed shrubs on both sides of the road were cleared and replaced by orderly street trees and open green spaces.Details
On the north-south axis of the ancient town, there are distributed key cultural relics protection units and historical buildings, extending from the memorial archway, Guandi Temple, and South Gate to the depths of the ancient town, forming a orderly spatial sequence. The memorial archway at the entrance is a symbol of Shenzhen’s long history and culture, and is also the starting point and facade of Nantou Ancient Town.
Recommended
During the investigation, L&A Design Team found that Guandi Temple was a high traffic area. On the way home from work, many residents would worship Guan Yu statue outside the wall when passing by. This is a touching and interesting story, which also made us aware of the problems that the retaining walls along the street was too high and too hard, causing the vision become limited. Therefore, during the renovation, the wall facing the street was opened to make the connection between the entrance interface and the town a more open space.
The South Gate Square alone has undergone three rounds of design and seven rounds of scrutiny, and finally chose the most ordinary and most lively plan. In the reconstruction, we retained the big banyan trees and scattered stones in the park, preserving the peculiarity of the Lingnan village entrance. L&A Design Team thought that adding six chipped ashlars in such a small space might seem very crowded, but when it was completed, it’s very relieved to see villagers and tourists actually using it.
Conclusions
Entering the gate, there’s a space completely different from the outside. Roaming in it, you can feel the impact of multicultural integration. After the street was enclosed by buildings of different forms, the straight linear space become complex in levels. You would encounter fork roads from time to time. These fork roads are connected to narrower lanes, connecting the hinterland of the ancient town like capillaries.
| Lat: | 22.32 |
| Lng: | 114.03 |
| Type: | |
| Region: | Asia |
| Scale: | District |
| Field: | Residence |
| City: | Shenzhen |