The theme is “Time-honored Grand Canal, Vitalized Homeland”. As an ancient Chinese saying goes, "Everything on earth has its laws and traits for survival, yet they all know the need to preserve their roots." The Grand Canal connects the northern and southern China, and goes through the ages. It is flowing world cultural heritage that has amassed rich culture and embodied the significant value of the times. In the new development stage, it is designers’ and professionals’ historic duty to strengthen the protection, exploration, and interpretation of the rich and excellent traditional culture carried by the Grand Canal, so as to develop and expand the fine Chinese traditional culture, to promote the blend of the Grand Canal culture with the elements of the times，and to finally revitalize this “flowing culture” and integrate it with present and future generations. This year, the contest is centered on design for reality improvement and design for cultural value creation. Focusing on protection, inheritance and innovation of the Grand Canal's historical culture, and being keen on the contemporary shaping of cultural vitality space, this contest implements the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's significant instructions on the preservation, inheritance, and utilization of the Grand Canal culture. It is also a proactive move to promote the Grand Canal Cultural Belt and the Grand Canal National Cultural Park, and a practice of enhancing the preservation and inheritance of history and culture.

Design description: Based on the theory of urban connection planning, this plan carries out the overall planning and design of Erliqiao across the Beijing Hangzhou Canal area. The planning focuses on the special geographical location of the site. In view of the development of business and finance in Guangling New Area, the future center of the city, and the multiple positioning needs of the historical and cultural heritage of Guangling historic city, the two sides of the site are closely linked by the method of "blending the old and the new, and symbiotic concert". Among them, the main body of the scheme combines Yangzhou's history and culture with the culture of the Beijing Hangzhou Canal, forming the overall layout of the site by combining the "Silk of the Canal" Canal Smart Innovation Cultural Center and three circular traffic bridges, and arranging a large number of landscape nodes of all ages and blending of various cultural elements. Facing the old city of Guangling, the "Canal Satin" embraces the precipitation of time and Yangzhou's strong water culture. It links the past and future of the city in the link with the "Ring of Water", "Ring of Dream" and "Ring of Culture", leading the city's multi-dimensional symbiosis, and creating a future rich in Yangzhou's culture and Beijing Hangzhou Canal culture.

The contest remains structured around open-ended propositions. Participants should choose realistic spaces related to the Grand Canal culture as theme, select locations, design tasks and sub-topics on their own.



The location of the design should have authentic historical memory and culture; it shall contain no fake or fictitious information. Design type should be various production–living–ecological (PLE) spaces related to the Grand Canal culture, including buildings, public space, facilities, urban furniture, etc. Priorities can be given to innovative designs around historical and cultural resources along the Grand Canal, such as historic and cultural cities/towns/villages/areas, historic districts/buildings, traditional villages/gardens, industrial heritage, and agricultural heritage.



The form can be single or integrated designs of architecture, landscape, urban design, and fine arts (including environmental embellishments). Renovation, extension and new construction are all acceptable contents of design, with no restrictions on theme, scale, and mode of presentation. The topics are unrestricted, and it is recommended to choose real daily life as the starting point. Lastly, design solutions with proper scale and genuine connotations are preferred, while those with grand narrative scene are not encouraged.



Design schemes should highlight their innovation and creativity. In terms of design content, comprehensive designs for the exploration, continuation, and revitalization of the Grand Canal's cultural significance are encouraged, designs for improving both old and new environment , old and new structures are also encouraged. Reasonable applications of new modern ideas, methods, technologies, materials, facilities, and scenarios are welcomed. Creative Designs are expected to contribute to the inheritance and development of excellent traditional culture in the new era.



In order to promote the implementation of creative design schemes, the subjects of the design sites are encouraged to form a consortium with contestants (such as the subject of property rights, the platform institutions, implementation subjects, etc.). Meanwhile, the Organizing Committee will collect a batch of sites with design needs from the society, offer an alternative list of sites (issued in batches) and build collaboration platforms for the contestants.