San Antonio flavor at Nanjing site

Architect Yanjing Chen grew up near Nanjing, a city of 8.4 million people in China's Jiangsu province, and now works in San Antonio, Texas, for the Overland Partners firm. Chen is part of a team working on a project called South New City Development, which will be modeled in part on San Antonio's famed River Walk.

"I have always wanted to bring what I learned back to China," said Chen, who after getting a bachelor's degree in architecture in China obtained a master's in the same subject at the University of Texas. "This project is giving me a good opportunity to share my experience."

Sijie Dai is an architectural designer on the project for Overland and is also a native of Nanjing. "It is such a meaningful experience for me knowing that it will help support the development of my hometown. I am glad to join a very talented team and deliver the exciting design with a lot of thoughts, effort and care," she said.

Overland's River Walk-inspired project in Nanjing calls for the firm to work with local architects to design an 8-mile water loop or canal connecting three rivers — the outer Qinhuai, Xiangshui and Airport rivers — to a new central living district in an area known as South New City.

James Andrews, a member of the Overland team, said that the firm wants to incorporate some of what makes San Antonio's River Walk an attractive public promenade: shade, a sense of intimacy and varied landscaping.

The River Walk, or Paseo del Rio, is the largest urban ecosystem in the US and a network of walkways along the San Antonio River one story beneath the streets of the city.

"Elements of San Antonio are included, but at the same time, we want to blend it with things that are culturally appropriate to Nanjing," Andrews said.

Approximately five years ago, officials from Nanjing, including the city's Qinhuai district, went to San Antonio and sampled the River Walk. Last year, a city official reached out to Overland about working on a project that will turn an old army airbase into a new town development in Nanjing.

"The city had grown up and surrounded the base," said Andrews. "They relocated the base and were looking for design help on a land-use plan to allow the South New City to be absorbed into the rest of Nanjing."

They asked Overland to create a vision for the water loop or canal. One of the challenges for Overland is that work has already started on the project, expected to cost about $160 million and be completed next year.

The canal will pass by two schools, and Andrews said his team is looking at ways to make the waterfront accessible for the students and public. Among the items under consideration are playgrounds and interactive learning walls, he said.

The Overland team has an international flavor. Chen and Dai are from China and Andrews hails from the United Kingdom.

"Overland has 15 international architects from countries like Iran and Poland," Andrews said. The firm typically gets from 10 to 20 percent of its yearly business overseas, and approximately 5 to 10 percent of that comes from China, added Andrews. Overland has been in China for 10 years and has done about 30 projects.

Hsin-Hsien Chiu, an instructor in the architecture department at the University of California, Berkeley, said "it's been a trend within the past decade for many architecture firms in US, including large and small-scale firms, to work on projects in China".

"This is closely related to the number of international students from China. Based on a recent faculty meeting in March of this year, our college is the one that has the largest portion of international students (24 percent) over the entire campus (and) lots of them are from China," he said.

"The recent construction boom and development has led to a very strong knowledge base when it comes to new fabrication techniques, engineering, steel manufacture and design," said Martin Miller, a professor at Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning.

"This has led to a new desire to develop a Chinese aesthetic of architecture and design, something driven by looking inwards to the nation's history, rather than inviting foreign 'starchitects' in to bring their own preconceptions to the field," he said.