Due to rapid economic growth and the resulting rapid increase in population, Shenzhen will be confronted with the need for new living and working space as well as necessary changes in the areas of mobility, energy and society in the coming years. The task of the competition was to develop suitable strategies for this.
In their contribution, the two students developed several small-scale strategic projects as part of a masterplan, which are designed as site-specific interventions. What is special about their planning design is that it simultaneously takes into account a wide variety of elements and scales, promising future residents a varied urbanity.
The ‘compact city’ offers different building densities, public spaces and green areas, embedding the city in the ecological ‘resource’ of the river landscape, intelligent mobility systems as well as small and large-scale supply for residents. A new public transport network is to be created for the megaregion comprising the cities of Shenzhen, Foshan, Guangzhou, Dongguan and Hong Kong, which will make it possible to reach all locations within an hour via a ‘one-hour zone’.
Tran and Bui's design also takes into account the city's location on the Pearl River Delta. The protection and strengthening of water and landscape as well as their interconnection in a balanced ecosystem should significantly increase the quality of life of the residents.
At the award ceremony in Shenzhen, the two students received the second honourable mention for their strategic proposals in the ‘Global Schindler Award 2015’, which is endowed with 7,500 US dollars. This puts them in 5th place in the international competition.
A total of three prizes, two honourable mentions and six travel grants were awarded to twelve projects. Over 250 submissions made it onto the shortlist of the competition, which was headed by Professor Kees Christiaanse (ETH Zurich) and overseen by a jury of eleven international experts.
The two prizewinners, Hoai Phuong Tran and Xuan Duong Bui, come from Vietnam and completed their Master's degree in ‘European Urban Studies’ - since 10/2018 ‘Integrated Urban Development and Design IUDD - Reflective Urban Practice’ - in 2016 with the Master's thesis ‘Hanoi Urban Metabolism as Bridge between Urban Planning and Urban Reality’, which was supervised by Prof. Bernd Nentwig and Philippe Schmidt.
The degree programme is characterised by integrated design projects with international project partners. These so-called ‘model projects’ ensure the exchange of knowledge on sustainable urban development between practice partners and the university.
In 2015, the former Schindler Award - which has been organised since 2003 - was held worldwide for the first time as a partnership between the Schindler company and ETH Zurich. The Global Schindler Award is an urban planning competition for students of architecture, landscape architecture, urban design and urban planning. It looks for unconventional approaches, innovative urban development strategies and architectural concepts for liveable, versatile and densely populated cities.