Licheng District Residences The design rethinks the conventions of enclave communities, and instead insists that the development participates in urban life by deploying a three-dimensional network of green. Internally, this green not only creates terraces and programs, but also results in sunken courtyards that bring natural ventilation and light to the basement parking, while the vertical greening and green roofs reduce the thrust of the residential towers. Urbanistically, the landscape travels out from the garden to become façade elements on the street retail, thereby partaking in the beautification of the city. The green infrastructure creates multiple urban shortcuts that slice through the site and into the neighboring commercial podium-hotel complex whilst connecting to the larger urban fabric along the street fronts, all without compromising the security of residents. These shortcuts connect to the jogging path/greenroof of the commercial shops separating the residents from the commercial site, thereby rethinking the hard edge sectionally, with the hopes of increasing porosity and accessibility, in visual and circulatory terms, of the development. Through public amenities plazas, courtyards, connectors etc, vibrant street life is inserted into the previously wholly privatized compound, inviting greater engagement with the larger neighborhood communities. Developmentality This project attempts to address the urban issue of residential development in China. Development in China is a product of its real estate system where home owners are not taxed annually for holding property in the city, and city governments “sell” large land lots to developers. The results are large enclave communities that turn their backs to the neighborhood, and by extension, the city. The brief called for 9 economically-built residential towers, street retail, a hotel and commercial podium within a mixed-use development. By rethinking the brief, the project is recast, not as an enclave, but as a responsible development within a 24-7 city.