Recently, the 2025 National Urban Hidden Gems Micro-Garden Design and Construction Competition was successfully held, co-organized by the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Landscape and Forestry, and other institutions. Under the theme “Promoting Micro-Urban Renewal and Co-Creating Livable Garden Cities”, the competition aimed to encourage participation from all sectors of society in the practice of urban micro-space transformation. Our School of Urban Construction actively mobilized student teams to participate, with two student groups gaining the “Excellent Design Award”.
Guided by faculty members Yang Yichen, Deng Xiaocong, and Deng Xiaoying, two teams of urban and rural planning students applied their professional knowledge to develop both creative and practical micro-garden designs. The first team—comprising Wang Tianyi, Wang Yuhan, and Cheng Yucheng—focused on the chaotic non-motorized vehicle parking issue at the north entrance of Beixianyu Alley Community in Dongcheng District. Through multiple site visits and resident interviews, they precisely identified user needs and proposed an innovative “semi-enclosed” vertical fence design. Balancing harmony with the surrounding environment and compliance with land-use regulations, their proposal also included the installation of resting benches and creative light strips featuring the community’s name, significantly enhancing both spatial functionality and place identity. This design has already been implemented on-site.
The second team—formed by Xu Xianglan and Meng Sijia—selected Desheng West Community in Xicheng District as their design site.Through in-depth research and data analysis, they comprehensively considered factors such as site scale, pedestrian and vehicle flow, and residents' activity needs. After multiple rounds of optimization, they developed a micro-garden design titled “Flowing Verdure, Blooming Nooks”. The final design creates a multifunctional micro-space that seamlessly integrates leisure, landscape appreciation, and community interaction, demonstrating strong comprehensiveness and implementation potential.
This competition represents a successful example of industry-education integration in the field of urban micro-renewal, offering valuable insights for both pedagogical innovation and urban quality enhancement. The outstanding achievements of our university in this competition fully showcase our students’ solid professional competence, keen social observation skills, exceptional practical innovation capabilities, and strong sense of responsibility towards serving the capital's urban development, further affirming the effectiveness of our university’s talent cultivation model.
