The completion of reconstruction work in the industrial part of Shanghai became known in 2021. The project implemented by SPARK Architects bureau was carried out as part of the master plan to change the Minhang district – from the territory of industrial warehouses to the scientific and technological valley.
“The thematic identity of the SPARK master plan is the “connectivity” of the radio wave. Different radio frequencies passing through different media are used as a motif and pattern of landscape surfaces. The interaction of technology startups, universities and government agencies with the landscape creates a positive and lively urban platform that connects the university and technology companies together,” the ideological component of the project is described on the bureau’s website.
Now Minhang is an area with developed infrastructure and recreation; commercial and technological facilities are located on its territory. The real decoration of the new district was a new embankment with paths (pedestrian, bicycle and running) of bright red color. Its length is 750 meters, and three pedestrian bridges connect the spaces. According to online publications, such color and shape of the embankment were inspired by the architects of the forms of diatoms – the simplest organism used in the modern world as an environmentally friendly way of water purification. Now the water in the river, along which the “red ribbon” runs, also contains a lot of these unicellular.
* The campus of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and East China normal University are located in Minhang.
The material was collected and processed by Sofia Chernopyatova
