General Design Category, Awards of Honor GENERAL DESIGN AWARD OF HONOR The Floating Gardens — Yongning River Park, Taizhou City, Zhejiang Province, China Peking University Graduate School of Landscape Architecture and Turenscape, Beijing, China

	"Arresting architectural forms playing off natural vegetation create a sensory experience. Nice work!" — 2006 Professional Awards Jury Comments

Narrative Summary:

In July 2002, Taizhou City asked the landscape architect to design a 21-hectare park along the Yongning River, the mother river of the historical city at the east coast of China. At that time, most of the park site along the riverside was already embanked with concrete as part of the local flood control policy.

In meeting the needs of designing this park, the landscape architect had to provide a concept that would be accessible to both tourists and locals, while also providing an alternative flood control and storm water management solution to be used as a model for the entire river valley.

The result was the Floating Gardens.

1.The challenges that faced the landscape architect were:
(1) To convince the local authority to stop channelizing the river with concrete. Not only is this process ecologically destructive to the fragile edge conditions of the inter-tidal zones, but it is also culturally and historically insensitive to the traditional symbolism and place of the river with respect to the lives of the local inhabitants. Additionally, canalization of the river is an expensive measure that uses up valuable public funds, which could be allocated to other public projects.

(2) To design an alternative flood control and storm water management solution, which would be used as a model for the entire river valley management. As a part of the speedy urbanization process in China, almost all rivers in China are finding the same fate; single-minded flood control projects based on concrete engineering and damming are canalizing their banks. Vis-à-vis this prevailing trend, this design would become a model not only for the Yongning River, but also a visible model for all the river treatment and flood control projects in China.

(3) To design a functioning park, which unlike a natural bird sanctuary which can flood and serve wildlife, must also be accessible and serve tourists and locals.

2.The design solutions: The Floating Gardens
The concept of Floating Gardens was developed to meet the above challenges.

The park is composed of two layers: the natural matrix overlapped with the human matrix---- the floating gardens. The natural matrix is composed of wetland and natural vegetation designed for the natural processes of flooding and native habitats. Above this natural matrix, float the gardens of humanity composed of a designed tree matrix, a path network, and a matrix of story boxes.

The design draws on the following aspects:
(1) A regional and drainage approach: a storm water process analysis showed the flood security patterns at every 5, 20, and 50 years' level. These analyses become the basis for the site design of the park.

(2) An alternative flood control solution: a wetland system, based on the regional flood security pattern analysis enabled flood control and water management to become an integral part of the park design. The whole site along the river becomes a multi-functional project under the leadership of the landscape architect.

(3) The matrix layer for the natural processes: composed of a restored riparian wetland along the flood plain and an outer wetland (lake) outside of the river bank that runs parallel to the river, the entirety of the park is covered with native communities. During the monsoon season, both the riparian wetland and the outside wetland are flooded. During the dry season, the outer wetland will still be submerged from both the retained water and fresh water from the inlet located in the upper reach of the river. Year round, water is accessible to park users.

(4) Native wetland plants, trees and bamboos are massed along the riverbank and throughout the design not only to ensure successful establishment of the vegetation, but also to promote continuity of the design with the surrounding ecosystem.

(5) The upper layer for the humanity which "floats" above the seasonally flooded natural matrix, is composed of groves of native trees, a network of paths extends from the urban fabric downwards the park, while a matrix of story boxes which allude to the culture and history of the native land and people punctuate the landscape at strategically placed points, among them are a box of rice, a box of fish, a box of hardware crafts, a box of Taoism, a box of stone, a box of mountain and water, a box of citrus and a box of martial arts. The use of boxes is a design approach to frame a human scale scene for a special theme within a large landscape background.

3.The significance of the park
This park demonstrates an ecological approach to flood control and storm water management, while also educating people about other solutions to flood control beyond engineering. This park further demonstrates the value of the native plants and common trees, which were often neglected.

The Floating Gardens is a park that incorporated minimum design techniques to create an accessible and interesting landscape dominated by nature.

 

	GENERAL DESIGN AWARD OF HONOR Lite-On Electronic Headquarters, Taipei, Taiwan SWA Group, Sausalito, California

	"Eye candy with a high degree of art! Beautifully proportioned. The landscape architect has created a lovely street edge in a tough context. " — 2006 Professional Awards Jury Comments

Lite-On, a major Taiwanese electronics company, chose the site for their new corporate headquarters with the "Electronics Center" of Taipei overlooking the Gee Long River. The owner retained the Architect and Landscape Architect to work together to achieve three key objectives:

1. Design an energy efficient, sustainable "green" building.
2. Integrate the building and site with the landscape as an important component of being "green".
3. Provide secure and functional outdoor space for passive use by employees and visitors.

The overall concept was a 25-story slender tower rising above a sloped landscape podium that covered much of the site. The podium built over four levels of below grade parking sloped toward the river on one side and toward the urban center on the other side. This configuration maximizes views from the tower and for users of the landscape gardens. The podium provided security, view gardens and a green roof, retaining storm water, storing it for irrigation, and providing insulation for the public spaces below.

The podium at the rear of the site slopes one story to the street where a major vehicular entry provides access into the recessed atrium court. The larger podium on the riverside slopes two stories down to the boulevard. A second vehicular drop off is on this podium at the front building face. As the garden slopes away from the tower stepped water features create visual and audio interest. The landscape features take into account the limitations on the soil depth, weight, etc., imposed by the structures below.

The view corridor of the long sloped podium is emphasized by linear planting beds, lawn panels, and granite walkways. Garden spaces are created to allow for informal seating and outdoor gatherings. Halfway down the garden, a light well opens to a courtyard below that is viewed from the cafeteria at the lower level. Stepped fountains in the courtyard and a grove of Madagascar almond (Terminalia mantaly) can be viewed from the cafeteria or from the pedestrian bridges on the podium above.

The two podium gardens are flanked on the street below by orchards of Camphor trees and Golden Rain trees also serving as street trees. The generous open space around the tower gives it distinction in a dense urban context, as well as playing a major role in accomplishing the vision of the owner as a total "green" development. Conceived before LEED accreditation, this was the first green roof envisioned and built by a private party in Taipei.

ANALYSIS AND PLANNING AWARD OF EXCELLENCE Providence 2020 Plan, Providence, Rhode Island Sasaki Associates, Inc., Watertown, MA

	"An incredible exploration of urban design with a clear, strong vision. All cities should be so lucky. Beautifully done." — 2006 Professional Awards Jury Comments

The Providence 2020 Plan links the valley to the bay along an arc of public waterfront parks and a spine of transit. The new definition of downtown encompasses 1200-acres along this crescent, embracing the traditional downtown as well as adjacent industrial districts. Building on unique characteristics of topography, access, and architecture, each district will be positioned slightly differently to attract investment and economic development, ultimately offering a variety of experiences. Waterfront landings in each district will welcome residents and other visitors into the continuous waterfront park system. A network of new streets will repair areas rent by infrastructure and will regenerate industrial zones. These pedestrian friendly streets will extend up to the neighborhoods on the surrounding hills, joining them to the life of downtown.

Intent
The goal of the project is to overcome the barriers of 19^th and 20^th century infrastructure and regenerate the languishing industrial districts that have dominated much of the waterfront. Providence is determined to position itself for the new economy, but new downtown development must be meaningful to the residents in the surrounding neighborhoods.

The purpose of the plan is to direct and shape private investment through consistent policies and targeted capital improvements. A fundamental underpinning of the current planning process has been to include public outreach so that this input can help shape the vision and the recommendations.

Analysis
Providence is a city of many distinct districts, with residential neighborhoods occupying the high ground, overlooking the river valleys and the bayfront. In these low lying waterfront areas, industrial and commercial neighborhoods have traditionally dominated. Interstate highways and rail lines slice through the city isolating neighborhoods from each other and from downtown, and separating districts along the waterfronts. Over the years, a patchwork of plans has dealt with each district without ever looking at the connections and the relationships between the whole. Some districts are highly desirable for investment, while other areas languish. New proposals often exceed existing zoning limitations, raising the question of where to direct height and density. The residential neighborhoods on the surrounding hills currently feel disenfranchised from the downtown.

The commercial center, which grew up along the historic river port, features narrow streets lined with architectural gems. Over the last 20 years, public projects moved rails and river beds to restore a portion of the downtown riverfront for public access. In the adjacent downtown industrial districts, however, the waterfront is largely inaccessible: in the Promenade, the Woonasquatucket River is neglected and overgrown; in the Jewelry District, the Providence River is dominated by the highway and utilities; in Narragansett Landing, port activities over the years have left a residue of contamination, and several non-water dependent nuisance uses cluster there. The diminishment of industry in the City has left shells of buildings, vacant land, and brownfields. Without an adequate road network, many of these areas are relatively inaccessible.

The scale of new development and its parking has the potential to overwhelm the narrow streets and 19th century architectural fabric of the historic core in Downcity. Even in the surrounding downtown districts, the scale of medical research buildings and institutional expansion can be daunting. Allowing height and density in the surrounding downtown districts could threaten the preeminence of the traditional downtown and alter property values. Allowing height in the historic downtown seems out of scale.

Many plans have been developed over the years, but each one focused on a small geography creating a patchwork without physical or economic connections. In a city where downtown used to be the job center and the primary tax base, concern exists about the opportunity costs of ongoing residential development and institutional expansion. With the larger definition of downtown, priorities need to be established to direct private investors and to target public investment.

Reclaiming the right-of-way of an interstate in the heart of the downtown is a once in a lifetime situation. The vision for this land is hotly contested, while at the same time the new location of Interstate 195 creates a new set of barriers.

Design and Planning Concepts
The Providence 2020 plan sets forth a flexible framework for development integrating and anticipating the actions of the public sector, the private sector, the institutions, and the many non-profit organizations. Seven principles form the foundation for every recommendation in the plan. Within this framework, a great variety of decisions can be made over time to create the richly textured city, while still ensuring a shared vision of the overall outcome. The seven principles are summarized as follows:

1. Connect the neighborhoods to downtown and to the waterfront.
2. Link the Valley to the Bay with transit and a continuous waterfront esplanade.
3. Position each district according to it unique assets to promote diverse mixed use environments.
4. Create a network of pedestrian-friendly streets.
5. Design parks and surrounding development as an integral place.
6. Celebrate great architecture in both old and new buildings.
7. Develop shared parking in strategic locations.

Part of the city's distinct charm is the variety of places that have grown up along the river valley and the bay: the Promenade District, Capital Center, Downcity, Jewelry District, and the Narragansett Bayfront. Different architecture, activities, and tradition make each area stand on its own merits. Opportunities for infill development, adaptive reuse, and new streets and parks are vast, suggesting that each district could host both residential and commercial uses as well as supporting retail and civic uses. The concept of 18-hour mixed-use districts with places to live and work in close proximity to the arts as well as services encourages a committed downtown residential community.

The continuous waterfront greenway will weave through each downtown district, punctuated by a series of distinctive park landings for the neighborhoods. While Providence has made great strides on its continuous waterfront parks, these efforts need to extend upriver to the Woonasquatucket River and down to the Bayfront. The distribution of new waterfront parks will make every neighborhood and every resident welcome to the larger recreational system. Walkable streets, for which Providence is already well known, will extend into the former industrial districts to create more permeable access and real estate frontage. The relocation of Interstate 195 offers the opportunity to create a seamless pattern of new streets, parks, and development blocks with an emphasis on connections down to the water's edge.

A transit spine will connect the head of the valley to the bayfront, following along the length of the waterfront. The concept for the transit line can evolve over time, beginning with a rubber-wheel trolley, expanding into bus rapid transit, and if driven by demand, eventually being replaced by light rail transit. Transit stops will be spaced about one half mile apart to collect a five minute walk zone. At a few key locations, intermodal centers will interface with regional bus service, the existing trolley system, and automobile commuters using nearby structured parking.

Looking to the future, the character of each district should be celebrated to underscore different strengths. In this way the districts will complement one another and lessen the threat to the traditional core of downtown. This approach will build a city with a variety of choices for living, many different destinations for visiting, and investment decisions based on physical and economic competitive advantages.

Process and Implementation Strategy
The goal of the planning process was to inspire joint action toward a shared vision. Leaders in every sector were identified and gathered in small groups and one-on-one meetings in January 2005. These discussions brought forward a range of issues, goals, and ideas from a broad base. Interest groups included neighborhood representatives, arts and cultural organizations, real estate developers, large employers, economic development entities, environmental groups, health care and higher education institutions, and State and City staff and elected public officials.

As the team synthesized the key issues and developed design concepts and planning strategies for implementation, these ideas were discussed with the community leaders and with the broader public. A series of events held in May and June 2005 combined open houses and public forums. The dialogue from these meetings shaped the urban design and planning recommendations of the Providence 2020 plan. Through a close working relationship with many of the community leaders, the plan was able to identify the appropriate roles and responsibilities for implementation.

The implementation strategy focuses on phasing and the designation of roles and responsibilities of the different involved entities. Unlike previous plans, the Providence 2020 plan addresses the greater downtown and prioritizes public investment across this broader area. In this way, the public and the private sector can target development to the appropriate district within the context of a schedule for improvements over a 15 year period. Phasing plans allow the involved stakeholders to focus their efforts, and direct capital budgets and fundraising for the immediate projects. The strength of the plan, however, is its flexibility to accommodate opportunity-driven projects and unforeseen situations within an overall development framework.

Summary
The Providence 2020 Plan provides the city, the developers, the institutions, and the many other stakeholders with a shared vision of connected downtown districts. Cities need a broader vision and a new set of rules to shape uneven development pressures for residential, mixed use, institutional and entrepreneurial business uses in a variety of inner city locations. The emerging districts can develop unique identities that complement the traditional core and create a multiplicity of places to invest, to visit, and to explore. Access to the water, so long denied, will once again be possible through the regeneration of derelict industrial land. Through this planning process, Providence will reclaim its position as a beloved waterfront city drawing energy from a new economy that thrives in the diversity of multiple districts joined to the heart of downtown.

China's top landscape architect is on a quest to bring unexpected beauty to the nation's boomtowns 
BY SUSAN JAKES | ZHONGSHAN

Monday, Apr. 03, 2006
In 1999, officials in the city of Zhongshan decided to tear down a shipyard and replace it with a park. The city, situated across the mouth of the Pearl River from Hong Kong, has a tradition of putting its wealth to good civic use: its tidy streets are adorned with banks of flowers and well-manicured trees, and it has racked up model-city awards from Beijing and the United Nations. But these shiny credentials presented a dilemma for local leaders their political promotion would depend in part on outdoing their predecessors, and Zhongshan didn't leave much room for improvement. So when the Yuezhong shipworks went bankrupt, it wasn't long before plans emerged to remove an eyesore, cut ribbons and make progress.

Yu Kongjian, China's pre-eminent landscape architect, was brought down from Beijing to lend the project some cachetnd, as is often the case, his first move was to throw a wrench into other people's plans. Zhongshan didn't need more flowers, Yu told the city officials; it didn't need fountains, ornate wrought-iron fences, or hedges shaped like animals. Instead of bulldozing the shipyard, he proposed, they could put it to new use. A gantry crane would make an interesting gate, a crumbling water tower could become the base of a lighted beacon. Instead of grass, the city should grow weeds. Zhongshan's leaders found the plan unsettling. "We wanted something distinctive, but this made us nervous," says He Shaoyang, then head of the city's planning commission. "It wasn't like a Chinese garden with a rock here and a tree there." But, in time, the ecological soundness and low cost of Yu's ideas won them over. "After all," says He, "Zhongshan has a lot of parks. They shouldn't all have to look the same."

That's an unusual attitude in today's China. The nation is in the throes of the fastest urban growth in human history. In recent years the country has built an average of 2 billion sq m of floor space annually half the world's yearly total and plans to add another 20-30 billion by 2020. In theory, this should offer limitless opportunities for innovative urban planning. But as China's cities have grown larger, they have only become more uniform, so that each now seems to boast a skyscraping government office, roads scaled like highways and a vast Tiananmen-like square. This alikeness results largely from a dearth of professional designers and from the fact that breakneck growth leaves scant time for subtlety. But it also reflects a value system in which city infrastructure is conceived in symbolic rather than practical terms and where extravagance is the accepted symbol for modernity.

Yu, a professor of landscape architecture at Peking University, argues that China's current approach to urban development, with its emphasis on size and status over originality, is as environmentally reckless as it is visually dull. With farmland and forests disappearing and water running out, Yu says, cities can't afford be so wasteful: "China needs a dramatic shift. We've misunderstood what it means to be developed. We need to develop a new system, a new vernacular, to express the changing relationship between land and people." When Yu, now 42, returned home in 1997 with a doctorate in design from Harvard and a teaching appointment at Peking University's Architecture Center, landscape design wasn't even an officially recognized profession. The country had a long tradition of private gardens cultivated by gentry, and more recently of austere Stalinist-style parks designed to project state authority. But he felt the country needed more. "Landscape architects can't just be garden artists," says Yu. So, in 1998, he founded Turenscape, China's first private landscape-design firm, and set about finding places like Zhongshan where officials were willing to try something different.

Turen is an odd name for a Chinese company. Ren means person, but tu is more complicated. Literally the word translates as "earth" or "soil," but it's often used as a slur, a put-down for anything that is backward or unsophisticated the manners of a migrant worker, bad teeth, cloth shoes. When Yu's colleagues answer the phone, "Turen," it sounds like they're calling themselves bumpkins. Yu himself remembers being called tu when he arrived in Beijing from a rice farm in Zhejiang to enroll at the Beijing University of Forestry in 1980. He was 17, could barely speak Mandarin and was awestruck by the straightness of the city's poplar-lined roads. This "farmerist outlook," as Yu describes his own first impressions of Beijing, is the reason Chinese cities look the way they do: "We're a country of farmers. When we make it to the city we want to feel as far away from the land as possible. We hate weeds. We want to look up at tall buildings. We shun nature." To be truly urban, Yu says, China needs a new attitude toward tu.

Last month, on the sunday when Premier Wen Jiabao opened the annual National People's Congress with a speech about building a "new socialist countryside," Yu headed for the town of Changgou, in a rural district of Beijing, "to try to save some trees." Friends in the district government had phoned with news that Changgou had announced it would bulldoze several of its constituent villages and bring in 5,000 laborers to create an enormous man-made lake as part of a program to attract real estate investment and tourism. They'd recommended that local leaders give Yu an audience and consider hiring him. "It sounds like the Great Leap Forward"Mao's disastrous campaign to boost economic productivity in the 1950s,Yu said, as he sped toward Changgou in a van full of landscape designers. "But maybe I can stop them."

A group of local leaders took Yu on a tour of their project. Chalk lines marking the lake's proposed shores ran through villages and along roads. Yu leapt out of the car to take photos of a pair of bulldozers that looked tiny against the vast swath of empty land where they were mounding up dirt. Bounding past the officials, he turned his camera on a bird's nest high up in a poplar next to the mineral spring supposed to supply the lake. "He even takes pictures of that," marveled one official when Yu was out of earshot. Driving through town Yu passed a cluster of empty villas, waiting for the lakeside they'd overlook. Nearby, on a fenced-off piece of grass grazed an elephant and a giraffe, both made of plaster.

Back at the town office, the officials presented their plan. They played a DVD that showed pictures of large lakes in other places. Changgou's lake would be the center of a new resort, they told Yu. They would have windsurfing, golf and maybe skiing. The DVD played a montage of flowers opening in time-lapse followed by pictures of ripe fruit and beachside cottages. "This is our concept," one official told Yu, as the screen filled with hot-air balloons.

When it was Yu's turn to speak, he smiled. "I think you have a very good idea," he said quietly. "But I don't think your lake needs to be quite so big. What you have here is very rare. You're one of the only places in North China with spring water. If you use it up to make a giant lake, no one will come here. Right now I'm worried you're going to spend a lot of money, but lose value. Other places have lakes. Why not do something different? You could be a model of innovation."

Yu showed some slides of his work. "Wild grass," he said, pausing for emphasis. "It can be beautiful. It's very modern." Before long someone brought him a box of children's markers and a map, and he went to work sketching in islands of existing rice paddies within the planned lake's neat, rectangular perimeter. The official in charge of the project (who asked not to be named) winced. "I have plenty of paddies in this town," he told Yu. "If people want to look at them, they can go somewhere else. I don't need paddies in my lake."

The power of Yu's designs is the succinctness with which they communicate his ideas. His parks pair bushy tufts of native plants (which don't need to be watered or trimmed) with angular paths and minimalist sculptures in brightly-colored metal. The contrast between these rustic and futuristic elements is intended to attract people to the natural landscape, while changing it as little a possible. Yu studies the sites of his projects intensively before he starts planning and tries to work with what's already there梐n approach he calls "anti-planning."

In Shenyang, when an architecture school moved to the suburbs, Yu designed its campus to incorporate the rice paddies of the farms it had displaced. The rice became both a decorative element and a kind of literal food for thought reminder that landscaping needn't be expensive and that even agriculture can look modern. In Taizhou, Yu un-channeled a local river, removing cement barriers and letting it flood into a wetland through which he snaked bicycle paths, docks and terraces. In Zhongshan, Yu's shipyard park, which like the campus was honored by the American Society of Landscape Architects, has quickly become a local landmark. On a recent weekday afternoon, the park was full. Toddlers climbed happily over pebbled railroad tracks, men played chess on a platform surrounded by tall reeds, a bride posed for a portrait amid some (deliberately) unraked leaves, and two vanloads of officials on a study tour listened to a guide talk about environmental protection.

Despite his success as a designer, Yu sees himself primarily as an educator. In 2003 he founded and personally funded China's first graduate program in landscape architecture (at Peking University) and he serves as its dean. He writes prolifically and, again at his own expense, has mailed copies of his book, The Road to Urban Landscape: A Discussion with Mayors, to some 3,000 city officials. The book is a direct but gently mocking assault on monumentalism: its illustrations show absurdly massive plazas and people squatting on low fences designed to keep them off mosaics of hedges that can only be appreciated from the sky. Recently, Yu's ideas have gained new traction in high places. Environmental sustainability, green growth and resource conservation were major themes of last month's meeting of the National People's Congress. And Yu has been approved to help Shanghai rehabilitate a decrepit industrial stretch of its main river for its 2010 World Expo and to create a corridor of parkland along 1,700 m of the Grand Canal.

But it's the smaller victories that seem to excite him the most. The day after his visit, Changgou's leaders called to say they'd accept his plan. "I'm putting in islands and bike paths," says Yu. "The rice paddies are staying. They'll be beautiful.

《名牌》2006新年特刊

哈佛校训：艺术和科学无非异曲同工，毕业于哈佛设计学院的夏建统对此心有戚焉。他游走于GIS（地理信息系统）与建筑规划设计之间，在东西方两种文化体系下自由辗转。师从世界顶级大师，投身中国城市设计与数字化管理。未到而立之年的夏建统少年老成，希望用GIS和设计改变中国。

查尔斯·哈里斯是他的导师。这位哈佛设计学院终身名誉教授视夏建统为得意门生，一直把他比作“中国的佐佐木英夫（日裔美国设计大师）”。在他的努力下，致力于新一代国际主义设计文化的XWHO设计公司落户杭州，探索东方现代设计文化的光荣与梦想。

Jack Dangermond是他的师兄，也是他正在挑战超越的人。2000年哈佛设计学院百年校庆时曾做过一个调查：从设计学院出去的前50名对社会最有影响的人是谁？结果显示，不是贝聿铭、格罗皮乌斯、丹·凯利、库哈斯等建筑师，而是Jack Dangermond！其1969年创立的ESRI是全球最大的地理信息系统（GIS）软件公司，垄断地位相当于GIS界的微软。

建筑艺术可以永恒，但技术从根本上改变人类社会。“很难让人想像，这是一个规划设计师行业的人产生的转变。”哈佛最年轻的设计学博士、毕业论文就是关于GIS的夏建统，找到了自己的方向。
在哈佛校友会上，夏建统见过贝聿明，深感“两个时代从中国走出去的区别”，但他比在不同文化中选择的大师幸福。景观规划的感性不妨碍他技术的理性，他用编软件程序的手写出了漂亮的小说和散文，讲述科学和艺术的美丽新世界，《做一回哈佛情人》、《从西方到东方》成为他哈佛生涯的象征。

然而，这看似文理贯通、自由转换的中西游历，却是一趟精神苦旅。法国景观设计师雅克·西蒙的一句话，“中国看起来没有什么属于现代的设计”，刺激夏建统反省。他是多个城市的市长城市建设顾问，却往往对现状无言。他记得“陀山鹦鹉濡羽灭火”的典故，“商业竞争火热、传统文化失势的现代中国，探索现代设计文化就更需要陀山鹦鹉的精神。”

城市设计之路

《做一回哈佛情人》：“春愁，新大陆的春风……海的对岸，江南怀春的少女古中国的春心望帝，还在等他赴约，等一群富强的少年的赴约，赴一个千年的邀约。”

当夏建统学成归来，第一个大手笔就是重游小时候流连忘返的西子湖畔，给杭州做申请世界自然与文化遗产的西湖未来多维规划。待回老家江南古镇衢州，赋予从小在那儿长大的老城墙以新的意义，他完成了“赴千年的约会”。

每个人的一生，都会有因缘际遇。如果1991年，14岁的夏建统直接保送到清华微电子系，他也许如今已是著名的互联网上市“海龟”了。可他执意参加高考，因一分之差就读了北京林业大学风景园林设计专业，从此走上了一条城市设计的不归路；后来他到哈佛又迷上了GIS，又走上了GIS的不归路——夏建统认为，设计和IT是殊途同归的，都用来最优化组合地球上的资源，“所有东西对我来说都是基本的社会哲学层面的。”

北林毕业后，夏建统在建设部工作过一段时间，后为出国，他还到新东方当英语老师，每天骑数小时自行车奔波，晚上则忙一些设计的活。“那个过程很艰苦，但很亢奋，对自己帮助很大，具备了在哈佛承受压力的能力，生活岌岌可危的情况下还要考虑将来走什么路。”他认同李阳说的，“要成功先发疯”，人的潜力可极大激发。

1996年，弱冠之年的夏建统从哈佛、耶鲁等六所国外大学的Offer中选择了哈佛，开始了终生受益的经历。

哈佛设计学院声望卓著，尤其在现代景观领域更具优势，诞生了很多大师级的人物。近十年，该院的杰出校友录上增添了“夏建统”这个中国人的名字。几位导师如哈里斯、佐佐木英夫等对夏建统评价很高，他疯狂学习，还选修了别的学院，如商学院迈克尔·波特的课。“我在哈佛最大的一个改变是自信，长时间面对压力、挫折或失败，这可能比接触到不同专业知识更重要。”

与众位建筑名家为伍，光那种氛围就让夏建统顺利登堂入室，他也形成了自己的设计理念、判断及风格。比如结构主义建筑大师丹·凯利，就是他很好的朋友。他还尊敬巴西景观设计师罗伯特·马克斯，此人以“巴西风格”享誉世界。至于亦师亦友的库哈斯，夏建统更看重他以前做的关注社会的“非洲计划”项目，CCTV新大楼则有些哗众取宠。

针对中国成了建筑实验场的现象，夏建统倒认为不能一味谴责国外建筑师不负责任，只能怪我们自己消化理解有问题。用马斯洛理论来看国家大剧院“巨蛋”、2008体育馆“鸟巢”，他持否定态度，个性需求要到很高层次上的，而我们很多基本东西还没满足。

夏建统曾经被郑州请去做评委，日本建筑师黑川纪章在该市做了有争议的“龙湖”新区规划，“龙”形固然有创意，但却忽略了交通、生活等城市主要功能。

哈佛规划学者莫什·萨夫迪在《后汽车时代的城市》中写道，他1999年重返北京时，难以相信那是他1973年第一次见到的城市，“二战后中国几乎没有什么城市建设，因而有机会从西方的错误中学到许多东西。”可这二十多年的城市化进程，天翻地覆。马可·波罗笔下的城市没有了，沈从文笔下的凤凰变样了……夏建统希望中国建筑恶补、消化的时间长一点，否则建得越快毁得越快，最后又推倒重来。
“如果有一天全球化抹杀了人的Identity（身份），你的区域文化特征被消灭了，我觉得是很可怕的一件事。”

一次国际建筑论坛上，夏建统援引托尔斯泰的《三隐士》，说当代中国景观规划设计所面临的境地，就像一个很久没人拜访的孤岛，他建议我们“用自己的方式祈祷”，怀着高度的责任感，用文化和科技手段来解决传统的继承、地域的体现。会后，一位美国设计公司副总裁握着他的手说：“我听到了一个21世纪中国景观规划界的‘梁思成’的声音。”

生于70年代

明末清初周栎园《栎园书影》：“昔有鹦鹉飞集陀山，乃山中大火，鹦鹉遥见，入水濡羽，飞而洒之。天神言：尔虽在志意，何足云哉？对曰：常侨居是山，不忍见耳！天神嘉感，即为灭火。”

香港作家董桥曾为一本杂志组织一辑《中国情怀》专页，哈佛学者余英时寄来的文章即引用了“陀山鹦鹉”的典故。“中国情怀”确实存在于每一个受过中国文化熏陶的人的身上，遇到现实际遇考验，应该发挥陀山鹦鹉的操守。

但这种情怀大都出自阅历之人，何以一个生于70年代的年轻人竟有如此胸襟？加上建筑师是属于老人的行业，成功来得很晚，要做很多年才得到认可（贝聿明说）。

小时候受晚清文人的爷爷的影响，夏建统积淀了古典文学的修养，中学时期文理科皆很优秀，上大学以后又培养逻辑及艺术的能力，后来又做数字化设计，坚持“西技中魂”……“可能我是一个很矛盾的人，处在后现代社会，做着很前卫、高科技的一些事情，但是我的内心却很怀念一些人性、传统的东西。”

因此应邀参加云南红河州的哈尼族两亩梯田项目时，夏建统有一种冲动，建筑要与自然、人文环境水乳交融——方案是把房子嵌到梯田里，不破坏原来的景致。在规划2008奥林匹克森林公园时，他和美国大师理查德·海格一起完成了“萌丘”（MaNature），即人＋自然，反映“天人合一”的哲学及生命运动不息的创造力。他给苏州设计文化长廊，像日本建筑师矶崎新说的，符号尽量抽象化，回到更自然主义的状态。

其实建筑史上他真正欣赏的，是发明流水别墅的赖特和使用清水混凝土的安滕忠雄。“我很欣赏赖特对建筑内外环境的处理，在景观和建筑之间找到平衡。安滕忠雄对氛围、崇高感的营造，受本国传统文化熏陶，对我产生了影响。”

不谈工作的时候，夏建统才卸下与年龄不相符的老成持重。他写过一篇文章就叫《生于70年代》。这是最难定义的一代，70年代初和70年代末出生的人价值观截然不同。由于家庭背景，他反而觉得跟上一代有很深的体验。少年天才的成长过程中有早熟，也有压力，“父亲对我影响很大的一点是，早日成为一个男人。其实我现在倒很想回去做男孩。”

对他影响更大的是哈佛导师哈里斯，“很多朋友说他是Saint（圣人），他身上有阿甘的影子。我很感激他，我做很多事情也无非是对他补偿，对他另一个侧面的反应。”

年轻的夏建统心态十分平和。比尔·盖茨来哈佛开圆桌会议，安南是跟他同时毕业的荣誉博士……“经历多了，不以物喜，不以己悲。等上市了我也不会有太多感觉，至少不会像李彦宏那样激动得热泪盈眶。”夏建统令人惊奇地在设计、软件开发和管理之间轻松转换，他有时候把痛苦当作一种享受，每天最大的压力是没经历过置之死地而惨败。

平静的背后隐藏着波澜。夏建统不是一个“赌徒”，在商业运作上求稳、前瞻，但他却用自己的生命在赌——他在哈佛时查出心脏是危险的“双心桥”构造，一旦压力太大，就会导致气喘、心跳加快，甚至有可能猝死。很多朋友听说陈逸飞去世的消息，都第一反应给他打电话。

他从苹果电脑的斯蒂夫·乔布斯的经历中感悟颇深。这位美学设计大师十年来判若两人：从被出局到重新杀回来，从独裁狂傲变得宽容，因胰腺癌差点死掉，治愈后越加沉静，以iPod征服世人。夏建统向公司员工讲话，引用乔布斯的名言：“Stay hungry，Stay foolish”（永葆求知的欲望）。“当你不能亲身经历，最好的办法就是通过别人的经验教训有所启迪。”他喜欢看传记，比如IBM、胡雪岩、华为、柳传志等。

反过来，他也希望能把自己实践体会的东西与别人分享。明年30岁，夏建统最想要的礼物是公司上市，然后办一所大学，采取哈佛案例教学法，囊括设计、GIS、管理等内容。

命中不能承受之轻。