Dongguan, China
2020 - 2023
Dongguan Central Park
Situated along the Xinji River in a formerly dilapidated village dating back to the Qing Dynasty, the new 12-hectare Dongguan Central Park uses a water-sensitive design approach to revive the flood prone area – creating a new heart for the city’s central business district.
Project details
Client
Dongguan Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources, CR Land Ltd.
Status
Aiming to join the ranks of China’s first-tier cities alongside neighbors Shenzhen and Guangzhou, Dongguan’s new central park has been designed to become a defining landmark for the city. The park is envisioned as the core of a future district with residential, business, and leisure developments, utilizing a sponge city approach to address the city’s flood risks.
Guided by the “P-L-A-C-E making” principles – People-oriented, Legible, Active, Cleansed, Ecological – the park’s blue-green design seamlessly integrates water management infrastructure with welcoming, open spaces that draw people to live, work and play. With its multifunctional approach, the park is the first in China designed to facilitate community recreation around water during fair weather, and floodwater prevention during wet weather.
Establishing an active riverfront
The original park area has faced ongoing flooding issues caused by uneven topography, and a declining drainage system exacerbated by urbanization. Frequent storm events disrupted the city, making an intervention necessary to address these issues. Short- and long-term strategies were developed to balance immediate needs with future goals, aiming to improve livability, resilience, and economic growth through phased developments.
The park incorporates a sponge city approach, combining landscape and hydraulic engineering solutions to capture over 85% of stormwater runoff. It is designed to handle extreme rain events, like 1-in-100-year storms. A Central Lake, diverted from the Xinji River, creates a new water body, supported by a constructed wetland for filtration and a bioswale for rainwater management. This system cleans the water, making it safe for recreation, while enhancing the landscape and providing flood resilience.
The park's design also includes a dense metasequoia buffer that separates the Xinji River from the Central Lake, improving water quality through natural filtration and creating habitats for aquatic and birdlife. The design encourages public engagement with the river, including an elevated bridge for access. Informed by hydraulic modelling, up and downstream studies, data analysis and rain simulations, the redesign of the Xinji River promotes flood and ecological resilience while turning a formerly polluted waterway into a shared community asset for education and enjoyment.
“We took an unconventional approach at Dongguan Central Park, prioritizing nature and people to support the city’s ambitions for becoming a global economy.”
Jacky Pan
Design Director
Designed for life
Drawing inspiration from the contrast between natural ecology and the urban core, the park combines efforts to restore natural habitats and enrich wildlife while simultaneously reviving public spaces. Its layout features a dynamic urban ring for social activity along the city’s edge, creating a protective gradient that leads toward the park’s ecological core.
A multi-layered planting strategy and fauna-friendly elements, such as shelters for aquatic life and perches for predatory birds at the Xinji riverbank’s wetlands, create an ecotone that promotes a healthy ecosystem for the park’s wildlife. Over 30 bird species have been spotted within the park, a total transformation from the once inhabitable site where species were spotted sparsely. The park is in perennial bloom, offering visitors dynamic seasonal experiences. Consisting of subtropical native species, foliage of the regenerative landscape turns red in the summer, orange in the fall and winter, and pastel in the spring. This picturesque landscape is a backdrop of many popular social media posts, showcasing Dongguan’s identity through its preserved heritage trees. Beyond aesthetics, plantings were carefully selected for their flood resilient properties – such as the red metasequoia species which thrives in water.
Embracing a growing community, the park encourages interaction between children and nature through recreational learning experiences. The park’s playground emulates natures, offering a tactile sensory experience of the natural elements – sand, rock climbing, and water, while the adventure trail provides a safe route for forest exploration. Nature-based elements like stone beaches along the lake maximize the social value of water, bringing people closer while also functioning as hydraulic infrastructure for erosion protection and water level retention.
A new urban living room
Attracting people from the city’s economically valuable downtown area to the park, the design enhances both cultural and natural assets. Features like diverse walking paths, grass slopes leading down to the riverfront, green stepped plazas for socializing, open lawns, nature experience gardens, wetland boardwalks, adventure paths and floating pavilions integrate Dongguan’s heritage and natural landscape, creating spaces that reflect hospitality and rejuvenate the city’s image.
Since its opening, the park has become a popular destination, attracting up to 4,000 visitors per day. It regularly hosts local events that bring together people of all ages, strengthening the community bonds and the city’s identity. During the major Chinese holiday, Golden Week, in October 2024, the park welcomed 10,000 visitors daily.
Park programs and events are all organized and supported by the local government – and are free and accessible to the public. This ensures that the park not only benefits the natural environment but also enhances the community, setting a model for sustainable development in downtown locations across the country.
The second phase of Dongguan Central Park’s design is underway. It will integrate the landscape with the surrounding architecture, increasing accessibility to the public programs, expecting the completion end of 2025.
01/04
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