Page 44 - JCAU-5-3

Journal of Chinese

Architecture and Urbanism

ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Envisioning rural futures: Lishui and the Future

Shan-Shui City competition

Leonardo Ramondetti*
Interuniversity Department of Regional and Urban Studies and Planning and China Room Research
Group, Politecnico di Torino, Turin, Italy
(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Reshaping Rural China)

Abstract

This paper presents an international competition called Future Shan-Shui City:
Dwellings in the Lishui Mountains, promoted by Lishui Municipality (Zhejiang
Province) in 2020, and examines the three award-winning projects: Future Super Shan-
Shui Park by the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design, A Symbiotic Urban
Change by Olivier Greder Architects, and Prosperous Lishui by South China University
of Technology and Politecnico di Torino. By investigating how policies are changing
current planning activities, and how the themes raised and then addressed in urban
projects, this contribution sheds light on the salient features of today’s development
in Chinese marginal areas and provides the opportunity to discuss new visions for
rural futures that transcend the Chinese context.

*Corresponding author: Keywords: Urban-rural relationship; Future Shan-Shui City; Urban planning; Urban
Leonardo Ramondetti design; Agricultural modernization; Lishui
(leonardo.ramondetti@polito.it)
Citation: Ramondetti, L. (2023).
Envisioning rural futures: Lishui
and the Future Shan-Shui City 1. Introduction
competition. Journal of Chinese
Architecture and Urbanism, After three decades of strong economic growth, today’s rural China is still characterized by
5(3):0957.
https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0957 economic and social inequities, environmental problems, and demographic imbalances.
To address these issues, numerous policies and projects have been developed in recent
Received: May 17, 2023
years. Particularly, the Zhejiang Province has been a site of great experimentation: new
Accepted: July 17, 2023 facilities and accommodation for rural dwellers have been realized, villages have been
Published Online: August 22, 2023 restored, and new economic activities have been promoted thanks to programs such as the
Building a New Socialist Countryside (BNSC), the Beautiful Countryside, and the Rural
Copyright: © 2023 Author(s).
This is an open-access article Revitalization Strategy. As part of this development strategy, the Future Shan-Shui City:
distributed under the terms of the Dwellings in the Lishui Mountains competition was launched by Lishui Municipality in 2020.
Creative Commons Attribution- The aim was to turn a 152 sqkm site south of Lishui city into a laboratory to experiment
Non-Commercial 4.0 International
(CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits all with new relationships between urban and rural while enhancing the environmental
non-commercial use, distribution, features of the area. This article presents the competition, its genesis, and its links with
and reproduction in any medium, planning policies and then discusses the three award-winning projects. These materials
provided the original work is
properly cited. invite us to reflect on three points: the efforts to slow down urban entrepreneurialism;
the attempts to promote new plans and projects to redefine urban-rural relations; and the
Publisher’s Note: AccScience
Publishing remains neutral with promotion of high-quality urban spaces and environmental wellbeing.
regard to jurisdictional claims in
published maps and institutional This research is the result of studies conducted from 2020 to the present, in which
affiliations. the author has been directly involved in the design activities, interacted with academics

Volume 5 Issue 3 (2023) 1 https://doi.org/10.36922/jcau.0957