The core of the township revitalization lies not in the replacement of architecture and space, but in the elements that stimulate human vitality: jobs, residence, and the hustle and bustle. In Dingzha, we hope to build a new “urban and rural collaboration” model based on industry introduction and local circulation and combine pre-operation with spatial transformation to create a new hometown in the old town. – Peidong Zhu
Located at the border of Shanghai, Jiangsu, and Zhejiang, Dingzha Town where water town SOHO is located has become a hollowed-out township after a one-way siphon of urban development elements. As the future “Zhejiang Model”, Dingzha hopes to be integrated into the testing ground of common prosperity with sustainable vitality among the development opportunities of the “Yangtze River Delta integration Demonstration Zone”. In exploring the path of bidirectional balance between urban and rural areas, the revitalization path with cultural tourism as the starting point has been developed successively by the East Gate and West Gate of Wuzhen, which has been widely recognized by academia, the market, and the public. But on the other hand, the vast territory is scattered with those ordinary towns that lack characteristics and recognition in terms of cultural context, natural landscape, and historical accumulation. In the face of these ordinary towns, we try to find a new path, integrating research, planning, and design, to carry out value cognition, space transformation, and content placement on the historical production remains of the town. With industrial renewal as the triggering point, it is hoped to promote the flow of production factors to the towns, and gradually realize the reconstruction of living and ecological scenes.
