An international planning competition on image promotion of the Z-Innoway (the Zhongguancun Block) at Zhongguancun Science Park kicked off on August 13 at Zhongguancun Exhibition and Transfer Center.

Experts from planning, architectural, administration and landscaping fields judged the competition and will design a blueprint for the future Z-Innoway during the four months following the event.

The contest focuses on image planning and special research projects and contains two phases: the contest from August 13 to October 15, and the achievement integration phase.

During the competition phase, participants will do research on spatial planning. The winner of the contest will work together with the Chinese Academy of Sciences to finish the final design of the planning.

Both sides of the Z-Innoway, south to Baishixin Bridge and north to Qsinghua West Gate, are being redesigned, with a total length of 7.2 kilometers.

Du Baodong, a planner at Haidian District, said the image planning covers a wide area of Z-Innoway and will make various improvements such as development of an open environment, provision of an intelligent transportation and parking system, advertisement billboards and road fixtures and a nightscape lighting system.

In addition, many enterprises are participating actively in the renewal process as they believe the improvement of Z-Innoway's image can improve their own. The opening and sharing of innovation resources of different enterprises in Zhongguancun Science Park will be included in the design process.

Du Baodong also mentioned that although Zhongguancun has become the core of technology and innovation, many achievements have not yet found their way into the actual design of the Zhongguancun block.

For example, the traffic lights in the block are totally different from each other. Designers hope to apply technology innovation to real life on the street.

Against the background of China's innovation development and the construction of national innovation centers, the Haidian District will apply its education resource advantages to integrate service chains to hasten the construction of an innovative core area.

The Z-Innoway Management Co., Ltd. is building a 500 million yuan ($75 million) renewal fund. Another two funds worth eight billion yuan ($1.2 billion) are also being prepared.

In the near future, the Z-Innoway will realize its reconstruction vision and become a universally livable and enterprise-adaptable technology innovation block.

The event is sponsored by the Haidian District government, the Office of Construction of Z-Innoway (Zhongguancun Street) and the Z-Innoway Management Co., Ltd.