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For centuries, Huangshi Bay’s unique natural setting has made it an ideal marine habitat and fishery in China. However, uncontrolled growth of aquaculture industries has completely transformed the shoreline today, resulting in public inaccessibility and irreversible ecological degradation.
To improve the site’s resilience, revive its invaluable working seafront, and celebrate its rich fishing heritage with the local population, this comprehensive plan integrates the restoration of coastal ecosystems with an upgrade of aquaculture industries and introduction of recreational programs into a multi-layered system. Woven into the regional coastal landscape, existing fishponds will be transformed to reestablish the physical and spiritual bonds between humans and nature.
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The latest plan for urban development and marine nursery industry upgrades of the region offers opportunities for coastal rehabilitation in the bay. The coastal park at the 981-acre site is identified as a pilot project to reimagine the coastline.
The project reconnects the city and the coastline, rehabilitates coastal ecology, upgrades the nursery industry, and preserves the coast’s history and cultural heritage to maintain the essence of the place. The design repurposes spaces once occupied by production facilities, serving as a reminder of the fishing community’s past while attracting people to the waterfront. The proposed trail system will allow ample access to the sea and serve both local communities and visitors to the region.
Unlike traditional engineered ‘hard’ systems which negatively affect coastal ecosystems and require substantial financial and human resources to maintain, the design proposes a rehabilitation of the natural shoreline ecosystem to improve the site’s resilience against natural disasters and mitigate climate change:
Comprising of a continuous trail system and six nodes of a composite ecological protection system, the project aims to leverage the place's rich natural and cultural assets and rehabilitate the site from ecological, economic, and social perspectives.
The design proposes a rehabilitation of the natural shoreline ecosystem with a variety of measures to increase flexibility and resilience against heavy storms and rising sea levels, including beach-dune-shelterbelt forest section restoration at sandy shoreline, oyster reef construction along rocky shoreline, and seagrass beds and wetland restoration in estuary tidal flats.
The design endeavors to upgrade the aquaculture industry through reorganizing and centralizing nursery buildings, along with creating innovative nursery production models. Three compounding models were introduced to ensure that efficient and environmentally friendly marine nurseries thrive on site, including attaching urban public programs to nurseries, integrating with existing terrain, and encasing nurseries in sand dunes.
The design tried to preserve the coast’s history and cultural heritage by repurposing spaces once occupied by production facilities for public uses and proposing a seafront trail system with diverse public destinations and programs that cater to all groups during all seasons. Different itineraries connecting various destinations will enable visitors to experience the ecological, cultural, and industrial assets of the site.
Over decades, the intense exploitation of fishery resources and seafront life in China has created irreversible impacts on the environment and local culture. The project is a pioneering effort in creating a new model of working seafronts The client and local professional society “highly appreciate the design concept and its innovative approaches, especially the sustainable strategies in preserving the site’s memory and passing down local traditions through ecology, production, and leisure”.
Sasaki is a leading design firm based in Boston, Denver, New York, and Shanghai. Founded in 1953, Sasaki has grown into a multi-disciplinary practice including Landscape Architecture, Urban Design, Architecture and Interior Design, Ecology, and Civil Engineering. Over the past 70 years, Sasaki has won over 900 design awards worldwide. In the Huangshi Bay Coastal Park Master Plan project, Sasaki has led the entire planning and design process.
Yantai Huang-Bohai Sea New Area Natural Resources and Planning Bureau, the client, was responsible for development, investment and management of the project.
Yantai Economic and Technological Development Area Ocean Economic Development Bureau and Ocean University of China College of Marine Life Sciences were consultants for aquaculture and ecology.
