Chengdu Future Science and Technology City Launch Area Masterplan and Architecture Design

The brief for this international design competition asks for a new masterplan for the innovation industry in Chengdu in Western China. While the innovation industry is high on China’s economic agenda, masterplans recently developed for the industry are hardly specific. They are based on a generic urban planning model—often defined by traditional infrastructure, a regular grid, a green axis, and independent plots—also used for masterplans for any other industry. Can urbanisation in China, driven by this generic planning model, remain sustainable, given that our ways of living, commuting, and relating to nature are vastly changing? In addition to supporting the innovation industry itself, should masterplans developed for the industry also be novel enough to challenge the generic urban planning model, offering new forms of living, working, and social spaces that meet our ever-changing needs?