Qunli Stormwater Park Takes Top ASLA Prize

The American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA) announced the winners of the 2012 Professional Awards and Student Awards this week.

The Award of Excellence was given to the Qunli Stormwater Park in Haerbin City (Heilongjiang Province), China, by landscape architecture firm Turenscape.

Featured back in Topos 77, the project demonstrates a Stormwater park that acts as a green sponge, cleansing and storing urban stormwater and can be integrated with other ecosystem services including the protection of native habitats, aquifer recharge, recreational use and aesthetic experience; while in all these ways fostering urban development.

The park's fringe is a cut-and-fill landform with a skywalk connecting vegetated mounds and a network of paths.

Platforms are set in the ponds to give visitors unique views of the inaccessible wetlands in the center of the park.

“Refreshing. It functions in a way that isn’t necessarily part of our vocabulary. There are different moments in the design.”
—2012 Professional Awards Jury

For more on the 2012 ASLA Awards, visit their website here.

*Images via ASLA