Together with MLA+ and Colliers Ramboll Studio Dreiseitl has won the competition for the design of the Xiaomeisha Coastal Zone.
Creating a marine-centered city
Shenzhen is a modern and innovative coastal city in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area in south-eastern China. It is a modern metropolis with the reputation of “City of Design” and has the ambition to become a global marine centered city.
Xiaomeisha is a beautiful quiet bay area adjacent to the busy city of Shenzhen, sitting between lush forested mountains and the waters of Mirs Bay. The aim for Xiaomeisha is to build a world-class urban coastal tourism resort with extraordinary mountain and sea tourism resources based on the theme of “creating a delicate Xiaomeisha Town that embraces the sea”.
Design concepts: reconnection, resilience and revival
Xiaomeisha is a place for leisure, where tired minds can rest and be revitalised by reconnecting to mountains, people and sea. The design is based upon three concepts: reconnection, resilience and revival. Re-connection means re-connecting mountains, people and the sea and activate their potentialities. Resilience represents an eco-safety concept of dealing with environmental issues. It's a bidirectional balance between nature and human beings. Revival is reviving the place as well as yourself.
Resilient while maintaining ecology
The design for Xiaomeisha emphasizes the joint development of mountains, city and sea, and greatly strengthen the good ecological base of Xiaomeisha and the “small but delicate” mountain-sea pattern. This case strengthens the mountain and sea habitat restoration of Xiaomeisha ecology, promotes the resilient bay of ecological disaster prevention integration, meticulously maintains the mountain ecology, and builds an elastic coast that combines soft and hard strategies.
Nature-based solutions
Xiaomeisha can cope with environmental issues, through nature-based solutions. Waterfront coastal protection measures will be integrated with pathway designs and the proposed underwater sightseeing hall is designed to withstand typhoon events while still considering marine biodiversity and water use sustainability.
The design for Xiaomeisha turns environmental risks into managed and aesthetic touristic highlights, setting an example for future ocean development. We developed five major themes and travel tips to enrich the various modes of “mountain, sea and city” tours. Combining innovative technology with natural environment, the visitors perceive the crisis and challenges of the sea in the virtual and real imagination space.
Championing environmental protection
Xiaomeisha is not only a tourist destination, it also conveys the values of environmental protection. Through cooperation with Yantian carbon coins, it increases public participation, forms a good mutual trust relationship with the community, enhances environmental awareness. Central to the design is connecting the extraordinary mountain terrain and ecology with the sea where three ecological corridors will ensure continuous habitat evolution.