Xicheng Canal Landscape – Opposite Parks / Brearley Architects + Urbanists

Architects: Brearley Architects + Urbanists (BAU)
Area: 1,697,000 m² (18,266,338 ft²)
Year: 2017–2025
Photography: Inter_Mountain Images
Architecture and Urban Design Team: Steve Whitford, James Brearley, Luo Huaili, Zhao Xudong, Wang Qian, Lim Shin Qin, Chen Zhiyong, Li Xufeng, Milly Gamlin
Landscape and Urban Design Team: Steve Whitford, Fang Qun, James Brearley, Huang Fang, Guo Liexia, Wang Chenlei, Shi Zhengting, Pan Linlu, He Yuqing, Luo Li, Xu Wanyu, Alexander Abke, Pan Guo, Cheng Qi, Yuan Yao, Zhang Yi, Zhang Xinwei, Gu Zhuocheng, Xiong Juan, Lei Tao, Zhu Qizhen, Ni Yang, Yan Xiaoqian, Zheng Fangyi, Zhang Duo, Wu Xiaojian
Planning: Li Xiao, Wang Xiaoqi
Interior Design: Guo Yuejiao, Chen Xianwei
BIM: Wang Hongbin, Wang Shuangdiao
3D Visualization: Liu Yijun
Documentation Partner: Hangzhou Landscape Architecture Design Institute Co., Ltd.
Client: Jiangyin Planning Bureau
Typology: Public Landscape, Parkland, Playground, Ecological Corridor
Program: Indigenous ecosystem corridor, cultural park, sports facilities, food and beverage venues, playgrounds, public amenities, greenway, and bicycle paths
Location: Jiangyin, Jiangsu Province
Country: China

Xicheng Canal Landscape – Opposite Parks by Brearley Architects + Urbanists (BAU) transforms a four-kilometer canal corridor in Jiangyin, China, into two complementary public landscapes dedicated to cultural adaptability and ecological restoration. Covering 169.7 hectares of former industrial land, the project expands the city’s park network while supporting the regeneration of surrounding residential and mixed-use districts. The East Bank features a flexible cultural landscape organized into 101 individual gardens, allowing public activities and recreational programs to evolve within an interconnected spatial framework. The West Bank establishes a continuous indigenous ecosystem corridor incorporating restored canal edges, wetlands, native planting, and habitats intended to support regional biodiversity. Pedestrian connections, cycling routes, distributed amenities, and retained industrial structures integrate the contrasting landscapes with their urban surroundings. Guided by BAU’s Networks Cities framework, the project explores how environmental resilience and changing cultural demands can coexist within a shared public landscape. Its development also exposes the challenges of urban rewilding, particularly where residents’ expectations for manicured recreational spaces conflict with the requirements of indigenous ecological restoration.

Xicheng canal landscape – opposite parks / brearley architects + urbanists

Xicheng Canal Landscape – Opposite Parks deliberately contrasts two approaches to public space, placing nature and culture on opposite banks of the Xicheng Canal. Designed by Brearley Architects + Urbanists (BAU), the project applies the practice’s Networks Cities framework, which understands successful urban environments as overlapping systems that retain their individual functions while contributing to a connected whole. Discussed in BAU’s 2024 Routledge publication Designing Networks Cities, this methodology informs a landscape in which ecological continuity and cultural flexibility are developed as distinct but mutually supportive objectives.

The project occupies a former industrial waterfront undergoing substantial urban transformation. Historically characterized by polluting industries, contaminated waterways, and extensive brownfields, the canal corridor has become central to the development of surrounding high-density residential and mixed-use precincts. Rather than introducing a uniform landscape along both banks, BAU proposes two environments with contrasting priorities. The western side is conceived as an uninterrupted indigenous ecological corridor, while the eastern side accommodates an adaptable cultural park composed of 101 individual garden units.

The East Bank Cultural Landscape Corridor responds to the changing recreational and cultural demands of contemporary Chinese urban life. Its underlying structure consists of a tessellated pentagonal pattern dividing the landscape into 101 complete or partial gardens. Each unit functions as an independent park, with individual edges measuring no more than 100 meters and diagonal dimensions extending to approximately 142 meters. The arrangement deliberately avoids a dominant spatial hierarchy, allowing individual gardens to be redesigned, reprogrammed, or adapted without requiring corresponding changes to adjacent spaces. This organizational strategy provides a permanent framework for activities that may change considerably over time. Rather than assigning every garden a fixed identity, the design allows different cultural programs and recreational uses to emerge independently. The resulting landscape accommodates variation within a coherent geometric structure, responding to the continually evolving expectations of its surrounding communities.

BAU developed the project through a process of identifying individual urban and landscape issues and establishing an ideal design solution for each. These independent layers were subsequently combined into a larger composition, with conflicts addressed locally while retaining the underlying intentions of the respective systems. Historical preservation, circulation, existing buildings, public facilities, and landscape programming were therefore treated as interconnected considerations rather than subordinated to a single formal arrangement.

One of these layers addresses the historical traces remaining within the former industrial environment. In the cultural park, selected fragments of demolished structures are preserved or reconstructed to establish a relationship between the new landscape and its previous occupation. Boundaries associated with historical precincts are redefined, while sections of former walls are rebuilt to frame views or provide seating. Through these interventions, elements that might otherwise have disappeared during redevelopment acquire new public functions.

The circulation network establishes further connections between the two park systems and their surrounding neighborhoods. Peripheral paths extend along both banks, continuing beneath and between existing vehicular bridges to provide accessible routes through the waterfront. Every intersecting street is connected directly to the canal, while diagonal shortcuts in wider park areas allow pedestrians to reach subsequent bridge crossings more efficiently. The ecological bank incorporates an additional central pathway, offering visitors a quieter route through its planted environment.

Public amenities are distributed through a hierarchy of programmed pavilions intended to provide relatively even access across both landscapes. Smaller facilities accommodating activities such as picnicking and mahjong occur at approximately two-and-a-half-minute walking intervals. Medium-scale programs, including children’s playgrounds and kiosks, are positioned at five-minute intervals, while larger facilities, such as cafés and event spaces, are distributed approximately every ten minutes. This arrangement integrates recreational infrastructure into the broader circulation network without concentrating all public activities in a limited number of destinations.

Existing buildings are also incorporated into the post-industrial landscape. Some are retained on green islands within the ecological corridor, while others are adapted to accommodate cultural programs and activities on the eastern bank. Their continued presence introduces another historical layer, allowing the evolving parkland to maintain a physical connection with the canal’s earlier industrial occupation.

Across the water, the West Bank Indigenous Ecosystem Corridor adopts a fundamentally different landscape strategy. Conceived as a continuous rewilded environment, its principal objective is to restore habitat connectivity and support the reestablishment of indigenous wildlife. The four-kilometer corridor is intended to connect with Jiangyin’s wider ecological network, providing protected environments through which native fauna can move between habitats.

Its restoration strategy incorporates a varied arrangement of protected spaces, nesting boxes, frog ponds, islands, rain gardens, and wetlands. Extensive sections of the canal’s former concrete edging are removed and replaced with contoured, vegetated banks, creating more favorable conditions for aquatic and amphibious life. Native riparian trees, plants, and reeds stabilize these reconstructed margins while contributing to the ecological recovery of the waterway.

The habitat design responds specifically to the biodiversity of the southern Yangtze region. The wetlands are intended to provide potential staging and wintering environments for migratory waterbirds, including the Oriental Stork, Little Egret, and Chinese Pond-Heron. Resident species such as the Common Kingfisher and Light-vented Bulbul are also expected to benefit from suitable foraging and nesting conditions throughout the year.

Aquatic restoration considers the canal’s wider connection to the Yangtze River and Taihu Lake near Suzhou. Native fish populations associated with these waterways are identified as important contributors to a functioning riverine ecosystem. Through the restoration of vegetated edges and aquatic habitats, the project seeks to support these populations and strengthen the ecological relationships necessary for a healthier waterway.

Balancing ecological preservation with public accessibility remains an important consideration along the West Bank. Meandering pathways guide visitors through the landscape while limiting disturbance to sensitive habitats. Public amenities incorporate muted colors, textured natural materials, and ecological references to reduce their visual prominence within the restored environment.

Larger infrastructure, including car parks and playgrounds, adopts ship-shaped footprints that reference the forms of wetland islands. These interventions accommodate the practical requirements of nearby residential neighborhoods while seeking to maintain the continuity and character of the ecological corridor. The resulting landscape acknowledges the need for public recreation without allowing intensive programming to determine the entire waterfront’s environmental identity.

The implementation of this strategy, however, exposed a significant tension between ecological ambitions and public expectations. According to BAU, indigenous habitat corridors remain relatively unfamiliar to many municipal clients and professionals in the Yangtze River Delta. Although the client initially supported the rewilding approach, the completion of surrounding high-density developments brought growing demands for the more manicured appearance of the cultural East Bank.

Many newly urbanized residents expressed a preference for conventional recreational landscapes, finding limited novelty in “wild” environments. In response, the client requested amendments to later stages of the ecological corridor, replacing some areas originally intended for native grasses with expansive lawns.

BAU identifies a particular irony in this development. Approximately two decades earlier, the practice had advocated for the introduction of lawns into new parks in Jiangyin, when these were still regarded as an unfamiliar landscape feature. At Xicheng Canal, the challenge had effectively reversed, with indigenous planting now requiring greater public acceptance than the formally maintained environments that had become established within the city’s recreational landscape.

To address this cultural gap, BAU proposes expanding the educational signage throughout the ecological corridor. These interpretive elements are intended to explain the environmental functions of landscape features that may otherwise appear unmanaged. Information about how reeds contribute to filtering canal water, why scrub vegetation provides essential wildlife habitat, and how different planting conditions support indigenous species would help communicate the ecological value of the restored environment.

The initiative seeks to establish a stronger understanding of the landscape as functioning environmental infrastructure rather than neglected public land. By encouraging local stewardship and greater appreciation of indigenous vegetation, BAU hopes that areas converted to conventional lawns may eventually be returned to more biodiverse habitats. The approach recognizes that the long-term acceptance of ecological restoration depends not only on its physical implementation but also on the relationship between the landscape and the communities using it.

Industrial and cultural heritage forms another important component of the project. Selected original structural skeletons are retained within the park, while large-scale architectural interpretations of former workers’ villages provide sculptural references to the waterfront’s previous occupation. These skeletal constructions preserve aspects of the area’s industrial scale while acknowledging the communities and labor associated with its development.

Repurposed landmarks, including industrial silos, further reinforce this continuity. Their integration prevents the regenerated waterfront from becoming detached from its historical context, allowing surviving structures to contribute to the identity and spatial organization of the contemporary landscape.

Visitor installations and interpretive signage also communicate the historical importance of Xicheng Canal as a regional shipping connection. The waterway formerly linked Suzhou and its hinterlands to the Yangtze River and the sea, supporting the movement of goods and the industrial activities that shaped the surrounding district. Through the retention and reinterpretation of these physical and historical references, the project incorporates the canal’s commercial legacy into its emerging public role.

The relationship between the two banks ultimately demonstrates BAU’s approach to accommodating different landscape requirements within a connected urban system. The East Bank prioritizes cultural adaptability through an independent network of gardens, while the West Bank emphasizes ecological resilience through habitat continuity and a more restrained form of public access. Their differences are reinforced rather than concealed, with circulation routes, distributed amenities, and historical structures providing connections across the wider parkland.

As part of Jiangyin’s developing citywide park network, Xicheng Canal Landscape presents an approach to post-industrial regeneration that considers environmental restoration and cultural programming as complementary urban responsibilities. The challenges encountered during implementation also reveal the importance of public understanding in sustaining indigenous landscapes. By bringing these competing requirements into a shared framework, the project examines how a growing city can accommodate changing recreational expectations while continuing to provide space for ecological recovery.