INTERNATIONAL
GUI’AN INNOVATION PARK, GUIZHOU
New District, who comissed us to design
an area of around 1700km 2 that will be
built over the course of the next 10 years.
How big was the team working on the
project?
We worked with a team from the Urban
Design arm of Tsingua University in
Beijing (Tsingua Holdings Human Urban
Planning and Development Institute) or
THHUPDI for short.
Tell me about your history in
landscaping?
Wilder Associates has always been
focussed on the planning of developments
that integrate responsible water
management. This has taken us to places
like Kenya, Bermuda, Brazil, USA, China,
Australia and more recently New Zealand.
This passion for integrating water into the
landscape was inspired by working with
Herbert Dreiseitl on Potsdamer Platz in
1996.
I started out working in the landscape
industry by working on sites, building
things and constructing landscapes.
From that I have learnt a lot about how to
technically design landscapes.
How long did the project take to
complete?
Surprisingly only three months for the
first phase. President Xi Jinping was
coming to address a conference on
sustainable cities and he would open the
park whilst there. We had no alternative
but to work around the clock for several
weeks to complete the design whilst it was
under construction. It’s not an ideal way to
deliver schemes and some of the areas that
28
Landscape Insight | November 2018
were rushed now look a little worse for
wear. However, this pace of construction
is quite common in China.
Can you tell me about any difficulties
you encountered?
Apart from the programme, trying to
explain sustainable design principles was
not easy. I remember having meetings
with engineers, ecologists, architects
and hydrologists and trying to get their
compartmentalised thinking into one
coherent design approach. There was
also a reluctance to take on any new or
innovative approaches, but I explained
that the purpose of an innovation park
is to test new ideas and approaches. The
Chinese are very afraid of failure even if it
leads to learning outcomes.
What was it like working
internationally? Did you fly down to
the site quite a lot?
Working internationally has many
advantages and disadvantages. The eight
hour time difference means that just as
the day in China is ending, the work day in
London is beginning. It is a chance to brief
the team and have them work up ideas and
concepts as well as catching up on issues
with UK projects. The downside of this is
that you usually end up working a 15-20
hour day. We were down on site for a week
at the project inception to see the site
and develop concepts with the team from
Tsingua. The rest of the work was carried
out from London apart from attending
the opening and the sustainable cities
conference.
Was there a language barrier?
I wouldn’t say a barrier. We had
translators on the project and part of it is
getting them to understand the issues so
that they correctly interpret and translate
them to the team. It’s not really a barrier