LikeLake: Eco-Community Engagement Platform

Ruoming Fang

Master of City Planning Candidate

Wendy Wu

Master of Architecture Candidate

01    /    INTRODUCTION

Water system has been an integral part of Chengdu’s urban life throughout its 2000-year history. Several rivers, most notably the Jin River, passes through the Chengdu region and nurtures the people in the city .

In the recent decades, China has gone through a period of rapid economic development that separated the citizens from the traditional water-based living mode. Waterways are filled up to become roads, rivers. Ports, docks and bridges are also disappearing. Water quality also deteriorated. Fortunately, people realized about the “water crisis” in time and began the rejuvenation of Chengdu’s water environment. Since the 90s, a few major water roadways (such as Fu fiverm South river, Sha river and Clear Water river) have been treated. In the 2000s, East and South lakes were being transformed and treated as well. In the 2010s, Jincheng lake and Xinglong lake were created.

Same changes also happen in the real estate development scene. Luxelake, a large-scale mixed development project in Chengdu’s Tianfu New District, recreates large swaths of water system that interweaves with the built environment. The revived water system can perform self-cleaning and has a Category II surface water quality standard. This success has led to many developers to invest in water-centered community building and develop large scale lake-residential projects. Suffice to say, Luxelake has set a new development model that leads to a renaissance of living with water in Chengdu.

During a visit to Luxelake in January 2020, we took a drone video to learn the geological, ecological and infrastructure condition of the site. We found the interlinked water areas are closely connected to residents and visitors’ activity zones (Fig.2). This helps us establish a comprehensive understanding of the water context of the LuxeLake community.

In addition to the physical and geographical survey, we produced and conducted a brief survey to the residents and visitors to the Luxelake site to get the user profile of “common people” coming to and interacting with the water system here. The survey consists of questions about the reasons for visits, the main attractions of Luxelake, and also the people’s interest in learning more about the water quality and ecology in Luxelake and the city at large (Fig.3). Our survey finds balanced results that show equal interests in the scenery, ecology and water-based activities in Luxelake (Fig.4). People are also generally interested in learning more knowledge about the Luxelake water system. The results have shown us that there are lots of diversified user needs and interests to Luxelake, and a big potential in promoting community interest and learning of the water system.

Through in-depth discussions with more stakeholders, such as the Luxelake developer and government, we found that the lake is a shared resource with engendering conflicts. Some of the clashing interests include its scenic visual value against its ecological services, and its role as a transportation artery against its recreational spaces, as well as its identity as a source of profit. An overview of stakeholders is summarized in Figure 5.

Current Challenge: Conflicting usage of water The current LuxeLake presents itself as a classic multiusage management problem. The lake is a shared resource engendering conflicts. Some of the clashing interests include its scenic visual value against its ecological services, its role as a transportation artery against its recreational spaces, as well as its identity as a source of profit.

02   /   REPORT

03   /   PRESENTATION