Shanghai midtown belt design recognised with World Landscape Architecture Outstanding Project
BDP's vision for the Shanghai Midtown Belt has received a World Landscape Architecture Outstanding Project, recognising a landscape-led approach that reconnects fragmented parts of one of the world's largest cities.
The award celebrates the practice's winning proposal for the Shanghai Midtown urban design competition, which sets out a new future for the city's outer ring corridor. Rather than acting as a barrier between neighbourhoods, the proposal repositions the green belt as a connected landscape that supports climate resilience, biodiversity and everyday urban life.
Covering approximately 600km² between Shanghai's inner and outer ring roads, the Midtown area has evolved through decades of industrial growth and infrastructure development. While the outer ring greenbelt was originally conceived as a landscape buffer, disconnected green spaces, fragmented movement networks and changing land uses have limited its role within the wider city.
BDP's proposal responds by using landscape as the organising framework for regeneration.
At the heart of the vision is the concept of the Jade and Gold Belt—a continuous park system that reconnects people, industry, culture and nature through an integrated network of blue-green corridors. These corridors link existing green spaces and waterways into a connected ecological system that improves biodiversity, manages stormwater, reduces urban heat and creates new public spaces for communities across Midtown.
The project also introduces the Midtown Integration Zone (MIZ) model, providing a flexible framework that brings together housing, employment, education, culture and recreation while supporting long-term economic growth and environmental performance.
Across the northern section of the masterplan, the "Three Hills and Four Bays" framework establishes a series of new destinations and waterfront landscapes. This includes the Wisdom Peak innovation district, the Pilot Peak regeneration of a former airport into a central park and transit-oriented neighbourhood, and the First Bay waterfront, where former port and logistics land is reshaped into a new gateway for the city.
The proposal demonstrates how landscape infrastructure can lead urban change, strengthening ecological systems while improving how people move through, experience and connect with the city.
The project was selected as the winning entry in the international Shanghai Midtown urban design competition and was showcased at the 2025 Shanghai Urban Space Art Season (SUSAS), contributing to public discussion around the future of one of Shanghai's most significant urban areas.
The World Landscape Architecture Outstanding Award recognises projects that demonstrate excellence in landscape architecture, urban design and environmental leadership. The recognition reinforces the growing role of landscape-led design in addressing the complex challenges facing high-density cities around the world.
“The exciting thing about Midtown is that it is a living, working part of Shanghai shaped by decades of industry, infrastructure and communities. The challenge was to use green space to reconnect what already exists and give the landscape a stronger role in the city’s future.
“This fragmented edge of the city can be conditioned into something that works as a connected piece of city. It is a long-term vision, but one that starts with everyday things: cooler streets, more biodiversity and places where people want to spend time.
“Receiving this recognition from World Landscape Architecture is a great acknowledgement of the power of landscape-led design. For cities like Shanghai, the future is about making better connections between people, nature and the places that already make a city unique.”