Landscape Design for the Water Tower Park at A40 Plot, Julon

Anchored in the profound cultural heritage of the Lingnan water town in Guangzhou's Julong Bay area, this scheme takes as its central thesis the creation of "a spiritual space that bridges the past and the future." It advances the "New Five Senses" residential philosophy — a sense of relaxation, a sense of authenticity, a sense of presence, a sense of connection, and a sense of ambiance — aimed at crafting for the urban new elite an immersive, sales-office-free paradigm of natural luxury living.

The design adopts the site's existing ancient banyan tree and an abandoned water tower as its spiritual anchors, proposing the overarching concept of "Symbiosis of Banyan and Tower, Breaking Through the Earth." The imagery of banyan roots piercing through the ground surface is extracted and reconstituted into a design language that permeates the entire site, symbolising that all things originate and grow from here, breaking through the soil unrestrained.

Site-Adaptive Design, Ecology First The scheme preserves the maximum number of native large trees on site — all trees with a trunk diameter (DBH) exceeding 80 cm are retained in full.

Vertical Optimisation, Rebirth of Banyan and Tower Leveraging the approximately 1.3-metre level difference in the banyan-and-water-tower zone, the design softens road gradients through grading and vegetation, creating a locally sunken historical ground-sculpture miniature landscape.

The design reconstructs a six-layered Lingnan spatial sequence — "Banyan Canopy · Chats", "Cicada Chirps · Green Shade Path", "All Living Things · Water Tower Ground Sculpture", "Water Town Platform · River Channel Terrace", "A Thousand Sails · Waterfront Grass Slope", and "Floating Boat · Roof Meadow". Indigenous cultural motifs — dragon-boat scale-pattern benches, Manchu-window stained-glass railings, and brass miniature river-channel ground engravings — are woven into the detailing.

The project as a "New Five Senses" community-style trend hub, the scheme programmes a full calendar of themed operational events — sky weddings, dragon boat festivals, sunset music festivals, and lantern art festivals. In synergy with the Julong Bay Taikoo Li district, it creates a city-scale City Walk check-in route, forging a new urban landmark for Guangzhou.