• Hefei sample areas
  • Hefei / Anhui, China
  • City of Hefei
  • 17 ha
  • completed
  • 1920-HFM
  • landscape design
  • Oliver Seidel, Martin Sobota, Tim Kohne, Enisa Selmanaj, Lydia Oehlwein, Kelai Yu, Anna Finn, Jacob Fielers, Lilly Irmer
  • Wasser Hannover GmbH
    Joost Emmerik

Sponge City Hefei - Floodplain park, Hefei/Anhui

The floodplain park is one of the five green corridors in the north of the airport city and plays a key role in the overarching sponge city concept. As a blue-green infrastructure, it makes a virtue out of the threat of flooding: the technical facilities required for water management are carefully integrated into the landscape design and staged as interactive, identity-creating open space elements. The result is a valuable public green space for play, sport and recreation.
A meandering dry stream forms a central landscape element of the floodplain park. The different water levels give it a constantly changing appearance. The neighbouring panoramic path runs close to the riverbed, along meadows and densely planted groves. Direct paths for cyclists and pedestrians connect the neighbouring residential areas. For the people who live there, the park serves as a green living room and is a meeting place for various social activities. Seating areas along the extensive retention areas invite people to linger and relax. Numerous facilities, such as a basketball court, playgrounds and a skate park, are easily accessible along the park promenade. The market hall located at the intersection with the cycle highway is a central meeting point and forms a striking spatial prelude.
In addition to the social needs of the city dwellers, the park fulfils another important task: the surface water from the surrounding districts is channelled here and cleaned by hydrophytes in rain gardens. Collected in retention basins, the rainwater can seep away and evaporate. The dry stream diverts any excess water into the wetland. While the riverbed of the dry stream is designed for a 50-year heavy rainfall event, the green corridor as a whole can absorb the rainfall of 200-year extreme weather events.

  • Hefei sample areas
  • Hefei / Anhui, China
  • City of Hefei
  • 17 ha
  • completed
  • 1920-HFM
  • landscape design
  • Oliver Seidel, Martin Sobota, Tim Kohne, Enisa Selmanaj, Lydia Oehlwein, Kelai Yu, Anna Finn, Jacob Fielers, Lilly Irmer
  • Wasser Hannover GmbH
    Joost Emmerik