Coded Scape is an urban landscape architectural project of 10.000 m2 that surrounds the Hangzhou Future City Experience Center, in Hangzhou, capital and most populous city of Zhejiang Province, China.
The Future City Experience Center, a showroom of smart technologies applied to the urban realm, is one of the buildings that make up a new Tech Hub in the Fuyang District of Hangzhou, city known to be home of Chinese tech industry leading companies.
Our intention was to transfer to the surrounding landscape this strong tech character, playing with the idea of binary code, in the form of black & white or full & empty, applied to the base canvas of the landscape, the pavement & the greenery. Thus, the pavement & greenery patterns resemble a binary code language, onto which we insert colorful bits of activity, as platforms for social interaction within the space.
Inspired by the modular rhythm of the main building’s structure, we trace an imaginary grid that helps us to allocate and distribute geometrical landscape features in different scales, from tiny pixels of grass, passing through middle patches of geometrical bushes to bigger platforms of urban furniture & activity areas for education & entertainment.
Within the entire landscape we strategically place a few focal points, either as resting areas or gathering points, as well as educational, leisure & entertainment spaces. In this way, a Circle’s Plaza can be found at the pedestrian entrance as a meeting point for visitors; a Bots Playground is located right next to the observation tower for the entertainment of kids; a series of 4 mini-plazas make up the main educational & activity area right by the side of the main circulation area; and a calm Coded Garden is placed in between the buildings in order to serve them both as a resting spot for workers and visitors from both buildings.
Altogether, the landscape enhances and stimulates the experience of visitors in the public realm even before entering the Experience Center.
