China | IDEAS

As professional practice becomes more collaborative, so must approaches to practice and academia. Meaningful mentorship can establish a sense of culture, encourage explorations in design, and facilitate rapid growth for employees at all levels. SWA Laguna Beach has committed to creating successful public/private partnerships in order to leverage mentorship through outreach, education, and giving back… Read more »

For the fifth consecutive year, the Laguna Beach office and the department of landscape architecture at Cal Poly Pomona are collaborating to expand the design curriculum and deliver an intensely focused and tailored experience that closes the real-world gap for students. The SWA Studio is centered on large-scale urban design projects. The partnership grounds a studio agenda in professional culture and expertise while helping students to develop their creative process, technical discourse and applied thinking. By linking the professional and academic worlds through design exploration, the partnership also creates the perfect academic laboratory to test urban design ideas of significant commercial, cultural, and environmental impact.

For SWA, this process is an ideal way to reinvigorate practice and strengthen the connection to design-based academic research while supporting the growth of our culture and staff. For the students, this collaboration is an invaluable educational and professional development experience. The exposure and relationships they gain by interacting with SWA principals and associates is very unique in the academic environment, and provides professional resources, networks, and experience for an unparalleled level of mentorship and commitment.

The 2018 professional-academic collaboration, Beyond the Edge: Water + Urbanism in Wuhan, is officially underway. Along with Cal Poly Pomona, this partnership has expanded to include Huazhong University of Science and Technology’s department of landscape architecture in Wuhan, China. The studio collects 20 students from CPP and 20 students from HUST who are divided into six teams made up equally from each university. The teams are assigned one of two project sites to research and design: the Yangtze River Waterfront and the Huxi River, at HUST’s Campus. Both projects are focused around issues of water and urbanism.

In order to make a studio collaboration in China possible, SWA was required to provide funding for a field trip to visit the project areas and cultural sites, as well as facilitate a workshop with HUST students and faculty. SWA reached out to various industry partners to solicit donations on behalf of the students and successfully raised funds from a generous group of vendors, contractors, and designers. Their support allowed for a 10-day excursion to China to visit Wuhan and Shanghai, resulting in a successful, sponsored studio experience that won’t be forgotten.

CHECK OUT OUR VIDEO JOURNEY in 90 seconds, or follow us on Instagram @swa_laguna or by using the hashtag #swa2018wuhan for more insights into the studio and China travel experience.

Pavel Petrov is a designer in our Laguna Beach studio.

A special thanks to our donors who made this memorable experience a reality:

PLATINUM DONOR

GOLD DONORS

SILVER DONORS

Bison Innovative Products

D.L. CUNNINGHAM

BRONZE DONORS

David Silverman & Associates

Tri-C Natural Soilutions

Tnemec

Netafim USA

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Posted by Pavel Petrov
in Education
on 6 March, 2018

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A day before our presentation to an important mayor, my Chinese client called me to say, “By the way, prepare a plan without that golf course drawn in; they are not allowed to be openly proposed.” I admit that I responded in full panic mode: “What am I supposed to say about that huge space now suddenly empty?” “Don’t worry,” he said. “The mayor will get it. Just remember to refer to it as a ‘sports park’ or ‘green park’.”

It’s not likely that a 70-hectare parcel of land packed with fairways can easily pass for a regular “park,” even to the most amateurish eyes. I was amused by this phenomenon: Banning golf courses on paper while building them everywhere under all kinds of funny names? What’s behind this love-hate relationship between the Chinese government and golf courses?

Back in the Mao Days, golf was regarded as a symbol of a “bourgeois” and “decadent” lifestyle, and building golf courses was simply out of the question. After China’s reform and opening-up, a Hong Kong business tycoon invested in the first golf course in Guangdong, the richest province in China at the time, and initiated China’s booming popularity with this novelty.

It soon came to the Chinese government’s attention that many golf courses are built at the expense of farmland and forests. Besides, with an annual average consumption of 400,000 tons of water and 156 tons of fertilizer and pesticide for an 18-hole course, environmental impact has become a concern. In 2004 the Central Government announced the “Notice of Suspension of New Golf Course Constructions,” a temporary ban while the government figured out better regulation measures. However, by contrast with the Central Government’s strategy, local authorities have been exhibiting a curiously ambiguous attitude—golf courses continue to be built under an unspoken agreement between local government and developers, as win-win instruments to enhance a city’s image, attract investment opportunities, and boost real estate values. And, needless to say, lots of the local government officials are golf lovers themselves. As an ironic result, during the ten years since the ban was announced, China has seen its fastest growth in golf course history, from 178 to 587.

In July 2014, the Central Government announced the “Notice on the Clean-Up and Rectification of Golf Courses,” under which many built golf courses will face their judgment day, and it remains unknown what the government’s attitude will be toward future courses.

To me, this is the most important question: Are golf courses the right thing to ban? The increasing number speaks for a huge demand from the market as well as the importance of golf courses for local economies; and their popularity will only continue to rise since golf was added to the Olympic programs. As for environmental impact, there are golf courses built on quarries and other deserted lands that have essentially enhanced those places both aesthetically and economically, so one can argue that the overall impact in these cases is positive.

Simply banning golf courses, or ignoring them, will only result in more being built secretly and run unsupervised. Effective protection of farmland, water conservation, and prevention of water pollution can only be achieved by recognizing golf courses as an undeniable demand, and through adopting legislative measures and establishing technical standards that ensure golf courses be located, planned, and built with full ecological awareness.

For now, when landscape architects and planners are frequently tasked with helping Chinese clients sneak in those “green parks,” we should fulfill our responsibility by fully evaluating their ecological impact, and provide the most responsible recommendations when integrating them within our designs.

A golf course built on traditional farmland and forest in Yunnan, China. Image: Google Earth

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One Response to “The Secret Life of the Chinese Golf Course”

los angeles landscape

Thank you so much for the wonderful information .This is really important for me .I am searching this kind of information from a long time and finally got it.
May 6th, 2015 Reply

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Posted by Yitian Wang
in Ecology
on 3 April, 2015

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SWA San Francisco received an Honor Award in the Planning and Analysis Category for ‘Nanhu: Farm Town in the Big City’. An integrated master plan that considers agriculture, villages, waterways and public landscapes “Nanhu will be a hybrid development combining China’s agricultural heritage with its present urban lifestyle. ” Read more at the ASLA award… Read more »

Posted by EllenBurke
in Performance Planning, Urban Agriculture
on 6 September, 2012

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SWA Group has announced the 2012 winners of our Patrick Curran Fellowship program, an internal research award that seeks to further the art and science of landscape architecture. We received 29 applications and selected 10 proposals (two were merged into one) that support our fellowship mission as well as contribute to the firm’s reputation as a world leader in the landscape architecture field. Fellows will receive paid time off to work in their project in addition to up to $10,000 in expenses. Here are the Fellowship Winners:

Beyond the Bayou — Pavel Petrov

The goal of Beyond the Bayou is to produce a documentary on landscape architecture that highlights the landmark Buffalo Bayou, Brays Bayou and the entire Houston Bayou waterway network. This project will serve as a catalyst for change in an effort to rehabilitate similar struggling ecosystems.

Digital: Real — Mandana Parvinian and Don Xu

The “design process” is undergoing significant change as a result of the new tools of advanced 3D modeling software. This new process offers designers new forms with sophisticated patterns and spatial curvatures that surpass conventional geometric forms. Visually intriguing, these forms are both difficult to represent in technical drawings and manufacture with conventional methods. This project will explore how these forms become a reality.

SWA Graphic Library — Zane Busbee and Jean Casillas

The goal is to collectively strategize and develop a digital library that would speed up the process of rendering illustrations. The idea is to create an updated and expansive library of graphic materials to assist in the efficiency of creating the renderings and other illustrations. The development of a graphics library will greatly improve the production time of rendering in plan, section, elevation and perspective.

Beyond the Green Myth — Youngmin Kim

This project seeks to revisit current sustainable planning and design methods that the field of landscape architecture has regarded as established principles. Recent scientific articles have refuted these practices, but this project seeks to verify current sustainable planning and design methods based on the most recent scientific data and facts. It also will examine how landscape architecture can incorporate new scientific knowledge to the design.

Hope Initiative — Huicheng Zhong

The goal of this project is to design a courtyard and prepare design development drawings for the Gongxing School, a Hope School in the Sichuan Province. The project also seeks to promote a sense of social responsibility for Chinese young professionals through the media. YOUTHLA, a nonprofit organization cofounded by Zhong, will recruit and direct volunteers to support the project.

Material Research in China — Shuang Yu

The goal of Material Research is to determine materials, local manufacturers and suitable construction methods for the most common material in China. The research will also emphasize on finding construction potentials for local/traditional materials as well as for the use of new contemporary materials in China. Following the research, an open database with this data will be accessible for SWA staff.

Material Reuse — Michael Hee and Alec Hawley

Material Reuse is geared towards providing a better understanding about reuseable material availability/sourcing, costing and implementation. The project seeks to create a template that can provide valuable information to SWA employees regarding investigated materials as well as a structured format for further investigation and reporting in an effort to streamline and encourage greener practices within SWA.

Social Entrepreneurship — Andrew Watkins

As the world’s population shifts to urban cities in the developing world, how can SWA develop a business model that is flexible enough to interact in this exploding market, a market that is 2.5 billion people strong and growing? As designers, we have skills that can affect change in these environments. This project seeks to develop a business model for SWA that can engage in a profitable practice of social entrepreneurship, effectively responding to challenges faced by cities in the developing world.

SWApp and Place App — Yu-Peng Hu and Jihyun Qu

Originally two submissions, the following project is a combination of two similar submissions. The goal of both projects is to connect SWA to the community, professionals, clients and potential clients.

The SWApp seeks to create an app exclusive to SWA that will provide a map service of all SWA projects around the globe. The app will act as an interactive projects tour guide, helping potential clients who seek to visit the firm’s public projects but do know how to get there.

The Place App will allow you to browse through the firm’s current portfolio of design and architecture. It will provide exclusive access into its award-winning buildings in the form of interactive guides when visiting the buildings.

Urban Villages — Judy Qu

This project seeks to observe the changes of urban villages in Guangzhou under the background of urbanization. This project will entail visits to redeveloped and under-redeveloped urban villages, develop case studies on urban and landscape design and create potential business opportunities in China for SWA.

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Posted by Sarah Peck
in Social Impact
on 17 August, 2012

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Overseas projects in Asia and the Middle East offer opportunities for development on a scale and pace unprecedented in North America. Due to the economic slowdown, many American-based landscape architects have turned to overseas work as a way to diversify their skill set and increase work opportunities. SWA has embraced the opportunities to work abroad… Read more »

Posted by SeanOMalley
in Urban Ecologies
on 27 January, 2012

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“Ecologistics,” the continuous and sustainable development of Rugao’s port-city interface near Shanghai the world’s busiest cargo and container port cluster, promotes a regional port-city alliance for the area and integrates global logistics with local ecology. In this three part series, we will focus on the history and evolution of ports and the specifics of Rugao…. Read more »