Guangzhou

Ling Nan Culture
Guangzhou Xiaguwei 4 Villages

Skidmore, Owings and Merrill LLP, Urban Design Studio
Partner In Charge: Philip Enquist Design
Director: Douglas Voigt Urban
Design Associate: Jae Min Lee
Urban Designer: Jennifer Skowlund, John Law, Javier Gil Vieco

The innovative integration of four historic Pearl River villages and University Island in Panyu City, Guangzhou Province, Southern China, presents a groundbreaking methodology. This approach not only preserves the centuries-old villages but also offers a blueprint for humanizing future urban developments in China and globally.

The four ancient farm villages that had survived relocation due to the massive build-out were isolated pockets, with virtually no connections to or interactions with their hundreds of thousands of new fellow Pearl River islanders. The villages and their people were the last island vestiges of the ancient civilization of South China.

The approach to the district-scale designers, when seeking sophisticated solutions to earlier problems of urban high density found its expression in the skyscraper… and the places in between. In the Guangzhou University Villages case, a new idea of preservation was created and the large campus places in between were woven together and humanized by modern urban design principles derived from traditional “Lingnan” techniques — with each iteration of the design process being critiqued by the engaged villagers.