Weifang Campus Masterplan

The Weifang Campus Masterplan organizes the development of an 8,000,000 square meter site that will house up to seven complete university campuses. Located on a former industrial salt production site where the Bailang River branches into Laizhou Bay, the project proposes a large-scale cut and fill strategy to create a new educational district that combines a dense campus model with wind-break forests, topographic microclimates, and salt marsh restoration on the expanded waterfront. The proposed site plan integrates urban density at a pedestrian scale with a sustainable approach to urban design. The restoration and conservation of the salt marsh ecology and planting of the wind-break forest is a key component of this approach; it provides substantive improvement on the current ecological condition and affords a potent representation of the mutual engagement of nature and the built environment. Each campus is organized around a central pedestrian street and a system of formal courtyards, and is framed by a wind-break forest. These three elements create the gradient of urban density that defines the form of each campus.