In dealing with the issues such as megalomania and homogeneity noticed in current city planning practices in contemporary China we tried to step back from what we find questionable and provide a different approach in dealing with these issues. We agree that in this case best practices are localized ones, where the key focus is suiting interest in local context, thinking primarily of every day residents.

Lowering the scale of created spaces and therefore producing a more humane way of life in public spaces can be named our goal.

Being bounded by the lake coast on one side and the presence of a river on the other, this turns part of our design area into an island that we destined to host most of the cultural and governmental buildings with a presence of other uses related with residential, commercial and financial along with the public ones, all mixed to make the area a more dynamic urban sector. The green network crosses through the whole area spreading into smaller parks that work as focal points when overlapping with the pedestrian road network. The main pedestrian axis is a broad space conceived in the beginning as a highway that created a rupture to the urban fluxes. After that big axis was placed underground the space became the main public space of the city that interacts perfectly with the public social and cultural character of the island.

We are using combined character of the space as the opportunity to make it more approachable physically and mentally. Mixing private contents of everyday life with the more public ones, we wanted to explore the contrasting between the public and the private. The relation between these two opposing forces of space, and the intertwining between them results in appearance of small, irregularly placed and shaped open public spaces. In order for these spaces to function as imagined, their form, contents and dimensions are playing a very important role. The unintimidating size is crucial in order for common residents to feel comfortable in them.

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The design of the government hall started taking into account the monumentality of public buildings in most of the countries of the world. In a Chinese context this specific kind of building is determined by a very closed and secured compound, a sort of tradition taken from the forbidden city.

The main references in the design process derive from the typology of wall, the Chinese traditional house (Siheyuan) with its courtyards, each with a higher relevance than the one before. And, the shape and general geometry of the roofs. Even if the building is based on the typology of wall, the shape opens towards the square to create a permeability and the idea of the connection of the politics and the people, a sense of democracy.

The courtyards, as well as in the Chinese house follow a sort of hierarchy in which as deep inside the complex the most important actions are taken place making the one facing the lake, the place where the mayor‘s office is located.

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