Text description provided by the architects. This project tries to address a mega problem at a micro scale — the increasing isolation of chinese urban resisdents from nature. Kunshan is in the Yangtze River delta region, a flat land with lots of rainfall. Towns in the region historically developed a unique landscape of crisscross canals and numerous ponds. Traditional buildings were next to or even cantilevered over the canals. Unfortunately, the rapid urban expansion and renewal of the past three decades have not only made cities bigger, but also transformed such intricate urban water areas into six-lane streets and dense towers. Even though developers created some fountains in their projects, these features tend to be of dead water. Various regulations further keep people and buildings from any intimate contact with remaining rivers and lakes. As a result, today’s urban children often forget the feeling of natural water, along with earthworms and crickets, which are part of the symptoms of apathy towards nature in Chinese high-density cities.
