Interview about Jiangangshan Number 1 Residential Buildings, winner of the A' Construction and Real Estate Projects Design Award 2025
The project is located in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, China, with a total plot area of 80400 square meters and a total construction area394000 square meters. The design gives full play to the advantages of leaning against Dajing Mountain Park, and builds a modern residential area with a pleasant ecology and rich cultural atmosphere. Maximize the use of mountain resources, so that all housing types can enjoy mountain scenery resources. Building types include residential housing, kindergarten, commercial street and supporting facilities.
View detailed images, specifications, and award details on A' Design Award & Competition website.
View Design DetailsDuring the overall layout planning, we adhered to the principle of balancing landscape and orientation to maximize the use of scenic resources. Firstly, the buildings were arranged within a range of 5–10 degrees southeast to southwest, with adjacent buildings staggered to provide each residence with excellent scenic views and optimal orientation. Secondly, leveraging the terrain's elevation differences, platforms were created to form a layout with lower southern and higher northern sections, allowing buildings in higher areas to overlook lower ones and achieve panoramic views. Finally, by adjusting the angles of individual buildings and unit layouts, staggering primary and secondary functional spaces, and increasing the spacing between buildings, we fully "borrowed" views from the external mountain park, "overlooked" the cityscape, and "connected" with internal garden landscapes. This seamlessly integrated natural and internal landscapes, forming a complete three-dimensional spatial system that blends with the surrounding environment and links internal garden views.
The project's unique geographical location inspired this special layout. The site is backed by mountains and urban parks to the north, while facing the bustling urban area to the south. The design theme revolves around allowing residents to immerse themselves in the tranquility of natural landscapes while enjoying the conveniences of modern urban life. "Centralized functionality and dynamic-static zoning"—separating residential and public service areas into northern and southern clusters—perfectly embodies this theme. The southern public service area includes a 27-class kindergarten in the west and a comprehensive building in the east, with ancillary facilities such as community health centers, cultural activity centers, community markets, elderly day care centers, and police stations, totaling approximately 7,000 square meters. The rooftop features a community swimming pool, and along with a 3,000-square-meter commercial street, it closely integrates with urban life. This not only facilitates user convenience and enhances the living experience but also serves as a "buffer zone" between the southern urban road and the northern residential area, reducing disturbances from the road.
During the overall planning phase, we combined preliminary survey data with BIM technology to create site and geological models, analyzing geological conditions and the surrounding terrain. This led to the adoption of a three-terrace design aligned with the terrain. In the detailed design phase, BIM technology accurately reproduced the geological distribution at various elevations, laying a solid foundation for analyzing the relationship between geological conditions and the basement's design elevation and scope. Ultimately, this resulted in a five-level "super basement" with an "overlapping, interconnected, and independently accessible" layout. The basement's seamless integration with site conditions avoided rocky strata, prevented costly blasting, effectively reduced earthwork, and was more environmentally friendly, significantly lowering project costs compared to conventional basements.
Modern lifestyles increasingly prioritize health, with more people engaging in running and walking. During interactions with local residents, we encountered avid joggers, so the concept of a circular fitness trail was met with unanimous approval from all stakeholders.
Despite the project's large scale, it features unique spatial experiences achieved through variations in space. Human-scaled components and landscape elements were used to create intimate and humanized spaces. For example, the entrance plaza utilizes site elevation differences with large steps and a grand entrance frame to highlight the project's entrance. A clean water surface along the central axis, flanked by green plant walls and a sloped lawn in the middle of the steps, evokes a sense of tranquility and calm upon returning home. Ascending the steps, residents are greeted by hedges and lawns within reach, with glimpses of distant mountains behind. The view opens to a bustling, horizontally arranged commercial street, creating a dramatic shift in spatial dynamics. Passing through the commercial street, residents enter the residential entrance lobby, where vertical transportation on both sides leads to a communal living room. Here, a two-story-high window frames the residential entrance landscape, offering a sense of openness. This entrance spatial sequence uses contrasts in size, height, length, openness, color, and texture to create a unique spatial experience.
By designing elevated ground floors, we achieved visual penetration between internal and external landscapes. This allows the mountain park scenery to permeate into the residential area and facilitates the integration of internal landscape clusters, creating a seamless blend of internal and external views and enhancing residents' overall sensory experience.
Leveraging Shenzhen's natural climate characteristics, measures were taken across planning, architecture, thermal engineering, air conditioning, and lighting to enhance the insulation performance of building envelopes and improve the energy efficiency ratio of air conditioning equipment, thereby reducing operational energy consumption. The 绿化 (greening) and water feature systems utilize recycling methods, making them more ecological and environmentally friendly.
Collaboration with the local community was a key feature of this project. At each design stage, regular discussions were held with community representatives to present design outcomes in an accessible manner. Important design results were also publicly displayed to ensure the community fully understood and digested the plans. This process gathered community requirements and suggestions. For proposals that were technically or legally challenging to implement, seminars were organized with community representatives to communicate and refine the designs. Some design elements were even tailored specifically to meet the community's needs.
The terraced design, aligned with the terrain, creates a layout with lower southern and higher northern building volumes, resulting in a visually layered façade that enhances the project's unique identity as a mountain residence. This terraced layout also benefits daylighting, scenic views, and basement accessibility. The five-level basement, aligned with the terrain, features entrances and exits at different elevations, dividing the approximately 120,000-square-meter (3,300 parking spaces) basement into multiple interconnected yet independent sections. This significantly reduces internal driving routes and ramp lengths, with basement entrances and exits designed for smooth access, improving driving efficiency and the overall homecoming experience for residents.
Through the collaborative efforts of all parties involved, the project achieved remarkable sales performance and was completed and delivered to owners in 2022, realizing a win-win outcome for all stakeholders. As a comprehensive residential real estate development project, it provides a valuable example and reference for leveraging complex terrain conditions, balancing earthwork to reduce costs, and integrating surrounding landscape resources in similar contexts.
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