THE SKY’S THE LIMIT

SkyPark revalues a former unused rooftop, converting it into a recreational urban strip in Shenzhen, China.

A fusion of infrastructure, architecture and urban landscape, Skypark in Shenzhen, China, is a rooftop park that is setting new standards in recreation and leisure for urban environments.

Design firm Crossboundaries partnered with the Shenzhen Nanshan District Government to focus on the development of the roof surface of the existing Shenzhen Metro Line 2 Depot, to create an elevated sports and leisure park to better serve the youth of the densely populated metropolitan environment.

Constructed on the 1.2-kilometre rooftop of the metro terminal, the transformed area now serves as a public park housing a multitude of outdoor programs that take advantage of the site’s height and beautiful surroundings.

As a way to give back to the neighbourhood, the park connects to buildings on its west side through skybridges, leading in students and sports enthusiasts on a platform made consciously for their use — bringing educational institutions together with the local community in a unique combination of sports and recreational programs tied together with the landscape.

The park’s spatial organisation follows decisions made towards three different user groups: the general public, neighbouring schools and sports professionals. Ultimately, the space is filled with plots of sporting facilities, ranging from basketball courts and five-a-side football pitches to professional level tennis courts with an audience stand.

A separate walkway for the general public interweaves through the length of the park, with parts elevated for a better view. This allows people who are simply looking for a casual stroll to enjoy the atmosphere without crossing paths with the high-energy activities within.

All entrances and accesses to the rooftop park are located in direct vicinity to different functional areas, while preventing unnecessary interference, and are reachable via six access points in total.

Vertical connections make the north and south ends directly accessible from the ground floor, inviting the general public up to the roof. School access happens exclusively via crossovers, leading directly onto the rooftop. These are attached to three secondary public entrances, in the form of elevators and staircases, for additional access from the street level.

Once inside the park, a signage system is implemented to help users navigate. The entire length of the area is divided into 100-metre increments, with signage polls located on each interval, presenting the current location as well as a map and description of where different functions are located. Scattered around the park are also pieces of urban furniture with markings of distance and function to help better pinpoint one’s location.

Crossboundaries’ rooftop park development has become an attractive addition to the neighbourhood, interwoven in its infrastructure and seen as a community jewel. “Our linear park is like a missing puzzle that plugs into the neighbouring communities,” concluded Binke Lenhardt, co-founder of Crossboundaries.

“It creates the necessary physical and visual link between the urban tissue and the seaside and, along the way, aims to satisfy the schools’ and the public’s ever-growing need for recreational spaces and room to breathe in a dense, urban environment.”

PROJECT PARTICULARS
Project Shenzhen Nanshan Skypark
Location Shenzhen, China
Architect & Design Crossboundaries
Photography BAI Yu, Shenzhen Luohan Photography Studio

COMPANY
Crossboundaries
W  crossboundaries.com