Open sharing makes Shanghai full of greenery, and the 90 year old "little angel" on Hengshan Road has turned to ecology for the first time | Park | Hengshan

At the end of last year, East China University of Political Science and Law demolished the walls along Wanhangdu Road. When the No. 20 tram enters the terminal station, the greenery of Huazheng Park on the north side is fully visible, and the cultural heritage buildings that blend Chinese and Western elements in the century old campus are clearly outlined for the first time.

If you want to find keywords for the ecological space construction in Shanghai during the 14th Five Year Plan, "openness" is one of them.

Opening the walls one after another, Zhongshan Park and the Huazheng section of Suzhou River are connected to form a microcosm of "openness". Parks such as Lu Xun Park and Fuxing Park are becoming increasingly "transparent", with the organic integration of greenways, waterfront trails, and other paths. Traditional forest land has been transformed into open leisure forest land, and the outer ring forest belt has formed the same ecological park belt around the city.

Shanghai is different from other cities in that it has a high population density, high economic density, and extremely scarce land. The cost of building new parks and green spaces in the central urban area, especially in the old urban area, is very high. "Opening up" has become the only way to release green space.

At the same time as open sharing, these spaces have also gained more possibilities.

Jane Jacobs, a representative figure of new urbanism, insists on allowing large cities to densely gather a large amount of resources in limited space, reduce transaction costs, and promote specialized division of labor. She believes that the more successfully a city's neighborhood integrates the diversity of daily life and a variety of users, the more it can receive support from people anytime, anywhere, including economically, leading to greater success.

So, the more fully open and shared various ecological spaces are, the more possibilities there are to benefit the people. This is in line with the concept of "one river, one river" waterfront space. By connecting breakpoints and walls, people's cities leave the best resources to the people and serve them with high-quality supply.

East China University of Political Science and Law demolished the walls along Wanhangdu Road, revealing the entire Huazheng Pavilion

Pocket Park: Cooperation and Win Win

Above the fountain, the little angel sculpture with its back facing Hengshan Road for over 90 years has been turned 180 degrees, leaving a smiling face for passersby. This transformation represents the magnificent transformation of Libo Garden, and private gardens are no longer unattainable.

No. 87 Wuxing Road was once the private residence of Renton, the chairman of the Bank of Credit Suisse in France. This modern independent garden villa, built in 1928, was once named Libo Garden. After the establishment of the People's Republic of China, it was used by the Shanghai Chess Society. In the 1970s, the chess society was relocated and replaced by the Shanghai Institute of Sports Science.

The double sloping red tile roof, white cement brushed walls, and concave convex three-dimensional shape make this excellent historical building with a strong French style. For a long time, citizens and tourists can only observe from afar.

The change occurred this year, and after multiple communications among multiple departments, the Shanghai Institute of Sports Science took the initiative to open the wall, give up about 1800 square meters of affiliated green space, and re plan and design it to be transformed into the "Libo Shuiyang" pocket park. The four major landscape zones of Hengfu Impression, shimmering waves, Jinghu Lawn, and lush trees have become vivid annotations of Shanghai's construction as a people's city through the photos posted online by citizens and tourists.

This park is also connected to existing pocket parks such as Gao'an Garden and Hengshan Garden, increasing the continuity of the ecological space in the Hengfu style area, making it more immersive during sightseeing and leisure.

Among the 24 pocket parks built in Xuhui District in the past two years, one sixth are transformed from affiliated spaces such as "Libo Shuiyang".

The Guiding Opinions on the Opening up of Affiliated Spaces of Government Agencies, Enterprises and Institutions to the Society released last year clearly stated that by the end of the 14th Five Year Plan, Shanghai will promote the opening up of more than 100 affiliated spaces of government agencies, enterprises and institutions to the society, with an open space of about 1 million square meters. Those that meet the conditions will be transformed into pocket parks, with no less than 35.

The "opening" of enclosed green spaces should never be a unilateral "promotion style" of the ownership units. At the same time, the ownership units should also have a sense of gain.

"At the beginning, there were concerns, mainly about privacy and security issues after the opening up," said Jin Yufeng, Secretary of the Party Branch of the Shanghai Sports Science Research Institute. During internal consultation, some athlete representatives were worried that citizens and tourists might look through the glass in the meeting room on the ground floor. However, the considerate and professional spirit of the district greening and other departments dispelled these concerns.

"Before our first on-site visit, we did a lot of homework, asked the ownership units to make demands, and invited three design companies to come up with four plans." Zeng Jun, the head of the Green Space Management Department of the Xuhui District Green Management Center, said that it is a major principle to enable citizens, tourists, and units to benefit from the opening of the unit's affiliated space for mutual benefit.

Considering the privacy and security concerns of the unit, the design retains a 200 square meter "private space", separated from the 1800 square meter open space to the public by iron fences, flowers, and vegetation.

During the communication process, the Shanghai Institute of Sports Science also hoped to take this opportunity to increase parking spaces and green coverage. The green department optimized the design as much as possible to meet the requirements. After the construction fence was removed, the parking spaces doubled, and the damaged hard ground was replaced with flowers and plants, resulting in a two percent increase in green coverage.

In addition, the planning and construction investment of the entire project, as well as the daily maintenance and management of the open area, are all undertaken by Xuhui District, which has also accelerated the opening and sharing of Libo Garden.

"There are still many designs related to research institutes and sports culture hidden in Pocket Park, which is very thoughtful!" Jin Yufeng said, and this cooperation model has given green space ownership units a great sense of gain.

Leisure Forest: Functional Transformation

At present, the proportion of urban and rural construction land and industrial land in Shanghai is still higher than that of international metropolises such as London, Paris, Tokyo, and New York. The land use method is also not economical, and ecological spaces often need to find a way out in the "cracks".

The ecological park belt around the city that Shanghai is promoting construction reflects this kind of "pressure". According to the current plan, there will be 50 parks in the urban ecological park belt with the outer green belt as the framework.

Setting the clock back 30 years, the main role of the outer green belt is still as a flexible buffer zone for urban and suburban areas, with the function of ecological isolation and protection. No one could have imagined that in more than ten or twenty years, so many residential areas will gather on both sides of the outer ring road, followed by strong expectations from residents for expanding leisure and recreational spaces.

There is a greenway in Suide Park, which is divided into a trail and a cycling path

Chinese style gardens in Mianqing Park

In the suburban space, Shanghai has focused on the transformation of forest land functions to expand ecological space and improve supply levels through functional breakthroughs.

In Baijia Village, Zhangyan Town, Jinshan District, the courtyard of the homestay "Zhoumo" is decorated with whiteboards. Adjacent to the forest is a vast expanse of water - Yulan Lake, and there is also a butterfly shaped butterfly bay nearby. After the nearby forest land was transformed into the first batch of large open leisure forests in Shanghai, "Zhoumo" is almost fully booked on weekends and holidays. In response to the needs of residents, it has added services and facilities such as barbecue, beer bar, coffee bar, and treehouse.

Homestays attract foreign guests, while the walking greenways and children's playgrounds in the forest are amusement parks for nearby residents to exercise and relax. By the banks of Yulan Lake and Butterfly Bay, local fishing enthusiasts can often be seen.

There are already 62 leisure and open forests like Baijia Village in Shanghai. Just two or three years ago, these open leisure forests were dense forests that could be seen but could not be walked in. With the rapid expansion of cities, the demand for "walking in" has become increasingly urgent.

In the past two years, Shanghai transformed public welfare forests and other forests into open leisure forests, with 8 of them being landscape and recreational open leisure forests covering over a thousand acres, and more than 50 being fitness and recreational open leisure forests serving local residents. This year, Shanghai has planned 6 thousand acres of open leisure forests and 58 small and micro open leisure forests, of which 15 have been completed.

Xu Zhiping, Director of the Forestry Department of the Shanghai Forestry Bureau, stated that the rapid growth of forest coverage in Shanghai began at the beginning of this century. The main purpose of large-scale afforestation is to improve forest coverage and achieve ecological functions of the forest. Therefore, the trees in these forests are very dense, and apart from maintenance roads, there are basically no roads for citizens and tourists to pass through, let alone basic facilities and equipment such as toilets, seats, and trash cans.

Although dense forests have become "walkable oases," unlike the construction standards of urban parks, some of the services that citizens and tourists can enjoy in urban parks may not be available in open recreational forests, such as the strict prohibition of using open flames for barbecue in the forest. These open leisure woodlands are more natural and wild, which are a powerful complement to the green recreation space in the central urban area of Shanghai center.

Urban Greenway: Transforming Concepts

In addition to opening up space and enhancing functionality, the transformation of concepts also plays a decisive role in the construction of ecological spaces.

Mr. and Mrs. Tang, who are accustomed to taking a walk by Peng Yuepu after dinner, recently discovered that the blue riverside greenway seems to have become longer: the originally straight "river" has added several "tributaries", flowing along the gentle slope towards the Jing'an Youth Sports Park on the other side, forming a circle around the football field, water body, water gate, and square.

From a straight line to a circle, the Peng Yuepu Greenway has grown from 0.86 kilometers to 1.65 kilometers, which is actually the result of the joint efforts of two departments.

"The 0.86 kilometer riverside greenway was built earlier by the water department of Jing'an District, and the greening department is mainly responsible for the construction of the park, not the greenway." Zeng Lulin, assistant to the head of the greening construction management department of the Jing'an District Greening Management Center, said that the decision to extend the greenway was made to facilitate the unity of the people and the regional ecological space style.

This year, when the greening department of Jing'an District was constructing the Jing'an Youth Sports Park, they considered that the park's geographical location was adjacent to the completed Pengyuepu West Greenway, so they connected the trail in the park with the riverside greenway.

The reporter saw on site that the riverside greenway is blue, and the newly built greenway is also blue; Willow leaved verbena and purple delicate flowers are planted on the riverside greenway, and these flowers and plants are also planted on the newly built greenway.

Not only does it strive for a unified style, but the newly built parks and greenways also make up for the shortcomings of the original facilities and functions of the riverside greenway: the park management room and public toilets are built at the junction of the riverside greenway and the park. Mobile beverage sales vehicles are set up on the newly built greenway, and night running lighting, sunshade corridors and other facilities are added, providing a good place for surrounding white-collar workers and residents to exercise, exercise, and rest.

Working hand in hand has opened up more possibilities for greenways, and the Huangxing Park Greenway is also a classic case.

The park management department and greenway construction department are no longer acting independently. They have pioneered the use of park retreat walls to create space for greenways, allowing greenways to fully utilize the original ecological environment foundation of the park. What can be preserved in the space is preserved as much as possible, and what can be improved and renovated is never overturned. The trees along the line are almost unchanged, providing valuable recreational space for surrounding residents and adapting to local conditions, implementing the low-carbon concept.

"Greenways are public goods that benefit the people. If they are extravagant, wasted, or even damaged during construction, causing inconvenience to the surrounding residents' lives, it goes against the original intention." Zhang Xinyan, the director of the Landscape Architecture Institute of Shanghai Jingwei Architectural Planning and Design Institute Co., Ltd., stated that they inspected multiple greenways in Shanghai and believed that the circular design can maximize the utilization rate of greenways. In addition, it is adjacent to the park and can also expand the service function of the park after closing at night, meeting the fitness needs of the people 24 hours a day.

Since the 13th Five Year Plan, Shanghai has vigorously promoted the construction of greenways, and by the end of 2022, approximately 1538 kilometers of greenways have been built. By 2025, the total length of greenways in the city will reach 2000 kilometers.

With the change of concept, more greenways will become ecological, leisure, and health paths, connecting various green spaces such as suburban parks, forest parks, green forests, and shaded areas with green linear ecological spaces, activating urban ecological and cultural resources.

6.25-kilometer ecological greenway in the outer ring forest belt of Changning District