Red Ribbon: The Minimum Intervention Approach to Urban Greenway

Against a back­ground of natural terrain and vege­ta­tion, is a Red Ribbon span­ning five hundred metres which inte­grates the func­tions of lighting, seating, envi­ron­mental inter­pre­ta­tion, and orien­ta­tion. While preser­ving as much of the natural river corridor as possible during the process of urba­niza­tion, this project demons­trates how a minimal design solu­tion can achieve a dramatic impro­ve­ment to the land­scape.

Site Conditions and Challenges

The project is located on the Tanghe River, at the east urban fringe of Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, China. The site is a linear river corridor, with a total area of about 20 hectares.

The follo­wing site condi­tions offered both oppor­tu­ni­ties as well as chal­lenges for the design of Red Ribbon:

• Good Ecolo­gical Condi­tion:  The site was covered with lush and diverse native vege­ta­tion that provides diverse habi­tats for various species.
• Unkempt and deserted:  Located at the edge of a beach city, the site was a garbage dumping site with deserted slums and irri­ga­tion faci­li­ties such as ditches and water towers that were built for farming years ago.
• Poten­tial safety and acces­si­bi­lity problems: distri­buted with lush shrubs and “messy” grasses, the site was virtually inac­ces­sible and inse­cure for people to use.
• Demands of use:  Along with the urban sprawl process, the site was sought after for recrea­tional uses such as fishing, swim­ming and jogging by the people who came to reside in the newly deve­loped commu­ni­ties nearby.
• Deve­lo­p­ment pres­sure:  The lower reaches of this river have already been chan­neled, and this process was likely to happen again at the site, meaning the natural river corridor was likely to be replaced with hard pave­ment and orna­mental flower beds unless the new red ribbon design was imple­mented.

Design objectives

The major design chall­enge was to preserve the natural habi­tats along the river while crea­ting the new urban uses of recrea­tion and educa­tion.

The solu­tion is the “Red Ribbon.”

Design solution

A “Red ribbon” was desi­gned against the back­ground of green vege­ta­tion and blue water. This ribbon stret­ches for 500 meters along the river­bank, inte­gra­ting a board­walk, lighting, seating, envi­ron­mental inter­pre­ta­tion, and envi­ron­mental orien­ta­tion.  It is made of fiber steel, and lit from inside so that it glows red at night. It stands 60 cm high, and its width varies from 30–150 cm.  Various plant speci­mens are grown in stra­te­gi­cally placed holes in the ribbon.

Four pavi­lions in the shape of clouds are distri­buted along the ribbon, which provide protec­tion from the weather, meeting oppor­tu­ni­ties, and visual focal points.

Four peren­nial flower gardens of white, yellow, purple and blue, act as patch­work on the former open fields, and turn the deserted garbage dumps and slum sites into attrac­tions.

The bright red color of Red Ribbon lights up this densely vege­tated site, links the diverse natural vege­ta­tion types and the four added flower gardens, and provides a struc­tural instru­ment that reor­ga­nizes the former unkempt and inac­ces­sible site. The natural site has been drama­ti­cally urba­nized and moder­nized, two attri­butes that are highly sought after by the local resi­dents while keeping the ecolo­gical processes and natural services of the site intact.