Sasaki - Baoshan Steel Park, a growing green artery
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Baoshan Steel Park, a growing green artery

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Public Space  /  Future
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Site Evolution The 102-hectare Baoshan Steel Park is located at the site of the former Baoshan Stainless Steel Plant, a protected historical site in Shanghai representing the national industry of China. The steel plant, which began as Wusong Steelmaking Workshop in 1938, has evolved over 80 years and created many firsts in China's steelmaking industry. With pressure mounting to reduce air pollution and reclaim industrial land for civic uses, the plant closed in 2018, leaving behind large quantities of heavy equipment and extensive brownfields. This historic industrial site is ready to start a new chapter. As part of the future Wusong Innovation District, a new sub-center in northern Shanghai, the site is positioned as the district’s urban green axis, serving the prospective creative industries and the existing communities in the surrounding neighborhood. A Growing Green Artery The design proposes an adaptive landscape which will transform an enclosed steel production place into a growing green artery. The reimagined steel park builds its spatial structure on the original manufacturing process and site fabric. Major pedestrian paths transformed from on-ground and elevated conveyor systems, Steel Path and Steel Journeys, link the parks’ six themed zones redesigned from the original production clusters, the Steel Gardens. Steel Catalysts, a set of key public buildings repurposed from existing structures, anchor the programs in each garden with the Steel Platform which links the park’s north and south perimeters. The park intends to grow over time while onsite phytoremediation and plant succession take place, building a major green infrastructure and a variety of urban habitats. The phasing of the proposed redevelopments will be coupled with the progress of the park construction, to catalyze the new district and create an integrated urban destination. Demonstration of Sustainable Planning and Design Three major strategies are adapted in the park planning process, to create a state-of-the-art sustainable project. Restore Site’s Environmental Value The existing soil and groundwater had been contaminated to various degrees. The plan will remove heavily contaminated soil and remediate off-site, concentrate moderately contaminated soil to remediate at hyper-accumulator gardens onsite, and remediate lightly polluted soil in place with hyper-accumulator plants. The monoculture of the fragmented existing green patches and hard-edged canals provide very limited ecological value. The plan restores near-natural forest, grows continuous woodland, restores wetland along the riverfront, and builds land bridges to link ecological corridors, to create diverse urban habitats and a regional ecological network. Rain gardens, bio-swales, and permeable paving will be integrated along all public streets and inside the park, and wetlands will replace the hard-edged existing waterfronts, to control over 85% of the annual runoff. The collected rainwater will be reused as water sources for water features, fire hydrants, road cleaning, etc. The park will work as a cold island and regional ventilation corridor reducing temperature in the surrounding neighborhood by 1°C - 3°C. The plan orients park spaces to welcome prevailing wind in summer, and block wind in winter with the help of evergreen trees, creating a comfortable microclimate and prolonging the outdoor season. A complete green infrastructure will also contribute an important carbon sink to the city. The vegetation in the park will sequester over 7,000 tons of carbon emissions from bounding and crossing streets, exceeding the amount of their annual emissions. The existing buildings, roads, equipment, and site structures will be repurposed to minimize embedded energy. Solar power harvested through integrated photovoltaic membranes on site structures will cover the annual electricity usage of site lighting completely, with 25% surplus to return to the grid. All buildings in the park will operate in a net-zero model. Preserve its Unique Culture Based on the district master plan and characteristics of the existing industrial equipment and facilities, the plan preserves all the industrial history to the greatest extent possible and proposes new uses and ways of transformation. Six unique Steel Gardens together compose a coherent steel park. Diverse programs, integrated with the industrial features and made universally accessible, will complement planned uses in adjacent developments and the existing communities in the district, offering equal opportunities to all groups of people. Create the Main Urban Axis By moving most of the proposed development programs away from the park, the plan allows more industrial remnants to remain, more green spaces and less shade from buildings. Through a series of traffic organization measures informed by traffic analysis of the larger district, the plan eliminates ten cross streets proposed in the district master plan, promotes public transportation and slow traffic, and proposes five land bridges over primary and secondary roads to provide more continuous experience and higher wildlife habitat value. The road sections allow for easy transition into the driverless transportation era. The plan integrates all public green spaces, streets, building setbacks, building ground floor, and second-floor corridors into a holistic public realm network. Plan Implementation Informed by the existing soil contamination and fragmented vegetation in monoculture, the park will be constructed in phases coupled with the progress of eco-restoration and the development of the district. The plan is to complete an interconnected public realm system and a mature innovation district by 2055. The design has won the first place of the design competition and been well received by local authorities and stakeholders. As a new model for urban post-industrial site regeneration, Baoshan Steel Park is leading the way.

Credits

 Shanghai
 China
 Shanghai Planning and Natural Resources Bureaucracy of Baoshan District Shanghai Baodishangshi Urban Production Development Co., Ltd.
 04/2024
 1020000 mq
 HMD (Shanghai) Engineering Consultancy Corp. Ltd.
 Sasaki
 Shanghai Urban Construction Design& Research Institute (Group) Co.,Ltd., (Transportation) Beijing Ning Field Lighting Design Corp. , Ltd. (Lightning) Shanghai Academy of Landscape Architecture Science and Planning (Soil and Ecology)
 Sasaki, Google Maps

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