Liangmao Village Renovation / NODE Achitecture & Urbanism

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Background: Urban Village Projects – Longgang Urban Village Initiative.The Urban Village Projects – Longgang Urban Village Initiative, curated by Chief Planner Zhou Hongmei and led by Chief Curator Meng Yan, was officially launched in 2021. NODE Architecture & Urbanism (NODE) is privileged to participate in this initiative as part of the multidisciplinary design team. As the co-curator and lead design coordinator for the Liangmao Village, one of the six designated villages, NODE takes charge of the whole process of its renovation and implementation.Nestled at the foot of Liangmao Hill, the old Liangmao Village lies within an area designated for roads, streets and transportation facilities in the urban statutory plans. The construction of a new city road prompted most villagers to relocate, though a handful of households remain steadfast, necessitating the adjustment to the planned route of Ganli Road, a major urban arterial road. A 12-meter height difference separates the old village from the newly constructed settlement on the leveled plateau, leaving the former long overgrown over time, and disconnecting the old village from both the new and the broader urban fabric. Our design seeks to reconstruct these segmented relationships — past and present, fast and slow, solid and void, and elevated and grounded. Through the dual dimensions of time and space, we explore the possibilities of integration and regeneration for the old village.Design Strategies. Reconstructing Fabric and Memory. The design begins with an interpretation of the old Liangmao Village's spatial fabric, inverting its figure-ground relationship to establish a new interplay of solid and void spaces. By layering spatial elements in a stacked manner, the intervention creates a new connector between the old and new villages, weaving historical memory into contemporary daily life. The ground level of Heritage Park reinstates the spatial fabric of the old village through a landscaped courtyard, where the interstitial spaces define pedestrian corridors and semi-open gray spaces. Above, a newly constructed steel walkway connects the old village, the new village, and the natural trails of Liangmao Hill, improving overall spatial cohesion and accessibility across the area.Despite its modest expanse of 3.15 hectares, Liangmao Village epitomizes this torrent of rapid urbanization. Originally a small agrarian settlement sustained by its surrounding natural resources, it transitioned in the 1990s into a housing development supporting nearby factories. The construction of the new village development leveled the mountainous terrain, adopting a standardized 10×10-meter grid for homestead planning and rapid implementation, irrevocably altering both the physical landscape and the traditional way of life. This standardized development model ultimately assimilated Liangmao Village into the accelerated trajectory of China's rapid urbanization. Encircled by industrial complexes, the village lost its original distinctiveness, becoming one of the countless homogenized urban villages.On this basis, we believe that achieving a diversified public life of "one village with a thousand faces" hinges on the differentiated collaboration of the design team. To this end, we invited ATELIER XI, led by Chen Xi, and artist Xue Feng to partake in the renovation efforts. This interdisciplinary collaboration of "architecture + landscape + facade art" leverages the unique physical characteristics of Liangmao Village, allowing each contributor to harness their distinct creative vision. By engaging with the site from different perspectives, we set out to craft a richly textured spatial experience that imbues Liangmao Village with renewed character and layered vibrancy.Given regulatory constraints, Heritage Park is primarily constructed using a lightweight steel lattice structure. This integrated floor-wall-ceiling structural system unifies the architectural language of the park, transforming the once solid walls into permeable "void" presences; meanwhile, inspired by traditional Chinese garden windows, the design introduces a variety of wall compositions. In this way, the remnants of the old village are repurposed into a ruin garden, offering a communal space for villagers and city dwellers alike — a place for leisurely rest, conversation, and children's play.As the most vital public gathering space within Liangmao Village, the Community Park employs a vertically stratified spatial configuration to unleash the potential of its constrained footprint. By surpassing the limitations of conventional single-purpose parks, it injects greater vitality and inclusivity into the site, forging a universally accessible environment that caters to all age groups. As previously mentioned, urban design encompasses various aspects such as public architecture, landscape, public furniture, building facades, and signage. To create the "One Village with A Thousand Faces" approach for diversified lifestyles. NODE uses a clustered approach to create interactive and diverse experiences, enhancing the vitality of public life in the village. Liangmao Village has a bamboo weaving tradition that spans over 200 years. This local handicraft culture has been widely used in the daily production and community building of the villagers, carrying deep material memory and regional craftsmanship. The design team takes bamboo weaving culture as a core theme and integrates it into the architectural and artistic expressions of the village entrance, elevating the production method to a cultural industry level.The ground level is conceived as an open-air amphitheater, featuring a large-span eccentric semi-circular structure devoid of structural columns in the stage area, thereby creating a flexible space for a variety of community cultural activities. The basketball court is lifted to the second level, requiring a specific structure that ensures balanced load distribution while integrating with the large-span theater below. Additionally, in response to the presence of mature trees requiring preservation within the site, the structural design is adapted to accommodate the canopy by strategically hollowing out the slab where necessary, blending the built form with its natural environment. This vertical spatial strategy not only achieves functional integration but also celebrates an interdependent relationship between structure and architectural space, addressing technical challenges posed by limited land and layered functionality.The Community Park is also envisioned as a child-friendly place, incorporating interactive and spatially stimulating play facilities tailored to children's physiological and psychological needs. These elements establish a dynamic interplay between the mountain's natural setting and the newly introduced sports amenities, maximizing spatial possibilities while cultivating an engaging atmosphere where children can interact with nature, thereby enriching the site's experiential vibrancy.In terms of street updates, the focus of ATELIER XI includes various spatial types, such as terraced gardens, main streets, and central gardens at different scales. The original sidewalk along the west side of the terrace, which was only about 1 meter wide, was widened into an expansive viewing platform through the use of a cantilevered structure, providing this otherwise congested urban village with a green, open space suitable for communication and physical activities — a "village balcony."Urban Design. Following multiple site visits and in-depth dialogues with local residents, NODE developed a spatial framework comprising "two infrastructure clusters + a T-shaped street cluster": 1. T-Shaped Street Cluster. The T-shaped street configuration enhances the spatial experience of Liangmao Village's pathways, interlinking the two infrastructure clusters with a series of pocket parks and sites of different elevations. The street effectively integrates the site both horizontally and vertically through its cross-dimensional layout. By combining urban, community, and natural public spaces, this approach aims to unlock the latent potential of the existing public landscape with minimal yet effective interventions, creating a more accessible network of communal spaces of higher quality.The design strives to embody a dynamic tension where contrasts coexist, bridging the old and new Liangmao Village while reinterpreting historical memory; it preserves the communal functions essential to former residents while simultaneously infusing modern public vitality. Through these design interventions, the old Liangmao Village is no longer a marginalized fringe but has been rejuvenated into a dynamic public place enriched with local cultural identity, a sense of homeland memory, and a lively communal life. The original Community Park was situated at the edge of the new village on a narrow terrace abutting the hill. With only a single basketball court and a sparse scattering of fitness equipment, its confined space and monotonous functionality fell far short of accommodating the assorted needs of residents across different age groups. In response, we proposed a renovation scheme emphasizing versatility and spatial efficiency, superimposing multiple functions by utilizing vertical spaces and thus boosting the site's overall value.The design of the entrance canopy and kiosk traces the historical connection between the village and bamboo weaving. By reinterpreting the local traditional handcraft techniques of bamboo wood structures and bamboo weaving with modern architectural language, the design seeks to ensure that the renovated bamboo structure and kiosk at the village entrance continue to preserve the local material memory. Artist Xue Feng interprets the history of bamboo weaving through mural art on the facade, adding a humanistic and artistic touch to the existing village, making it both contextually appropriate and rich in new meaning. SURE Design, based on the unity of mural and landscape colors, created a complete set of cultural symbols for Liangmao Village, combining the historical background with signage and logos. This set of symbols is used for building identification and directional guidance in the village.Looking Ahead. The renovation of Liangmao Village remains an ongoing endeavor. Beyond the spatial and aesthetic upgrades, we aspire for future urban villages to achieve a holistic balance between "software" and "hardware" by integrating community-driven management. By introducing new industries to elevate traditional production into the cultural industry sector, we endeavor to propel Liangmao Village toward a comprehensive and sustainable upgrade.Site Research: A Thousand Villages with One Face: The Homogenization of Shenzhen's Urban Villages.It is widely acknowledged that rapid urbanization has erased many distinctive local memories and historical spaces. In a short span, this trend has led to the homogenization of China's urban landscape, where cities increasingly resemble one another. As an archetype of rapid urban expansion,Shenzhenhas undergone an accelerated transformation, and its urban villages, integral to the city's development, have not been spared. Once rich in diverse identities and characteristics, these villages have been gradually diminished through standardized and uniform planning, culminating in today's phenomenon of "a thousand villages with one face."2. Two Infrastructure Clusters. The two infrastructure clusters, Heritage Park and Community Park, harmonize with the existing topography and natural conditions. By stitching together the physical fragmentation inflicted upon Liangmao Village by disparate development phases, these clusters nurture manifold interactive experiences — fast and slow, public and private, old and new, urban and natural — revitalizing the village's public life.Strategy: From "A Thousand Villages with One Face" to "One Village with A Thousand Faces".Through extensive field research and historical tracing of Liangmao Village and its surroundings, we addressed the pervasive monotony of community aesthetics, alongside the absence and fragmentation of public amenities. In view of the village's elevated terrain and constrained land resources, our approach integrated urban design strategies through a framework of points, lines, and planes. Centering on public spaces as the connective thread, the design enhances the multifaceted functionality of everyday infrastructure and crafts a diverse spatial experience that caters to all age groups, ultimately catalyzing a transformative public life for Liangmao Village, "one village with a thousand faces."