Project background
In order to further build a beautiful China, the CPC Zhejiang Committee and Zhejiang Provincial Government issued the Decision on Building a Beautiful Zhejiang to Create a Better Life and Opinions of the General Office of the People’s Government of Zhejiang Province on Accelerating the Building of Modern and Beautiful Counties in 2014, defining a new urbanization path of “people first, synergistic development of four modernizations, optimized layout, ecological civilization, and cultural heritage,” and proposing goals such as building a pilot area of the Beautiful China initiative and a role model of Jiangnan water towns, and reflecting the charm of “poetic and picturesque Jiangnan,” etc. In doing so, we aim at building modern and beautiful counties with Jiangnan features and Zhejiang characteristics, and realize the beauty of green ecological environment, planning and design morphology, complete facilities and functions, suitability for living and working, and social stability and harmony.

Location map of city clusters in central Zhejiang
Under the context of regional coordinated development, Dongyang should rely on its transportation road network that matures gradually, actively integrate into the regional economic network dominated by Jinyi Metropolitan Area, strive for greater platform development opportunities, and build a new fulcrum for the integrated development of the metropolitan area. Giving play to its advantages of industrial manufacturing, famous historical city, leisure tourism, etc., it will bring historic opportunities for the same-city development, mutually complementary advantages, and economic synergy of the metropolitan area between Dongyang and Yiwu.

Spatial structure map of Jinyi City
In order to enhance the scientific and reasonable territorial space planning of Dongyang City, effectively guide the urban development of Dongyang City, lead the future urban construction, and realize the preparation requirements of “operable, experiential and supervised urban design”, the CPC Dongyang Municipal Committee and Dongyang government put forward the overall regional planning of overall urban design. In combination with the demarcation results of three districts and three lines issued by the Ministry of Natural Resources, the six streets in the downtown area are determined as the planning range, and the scheme solicitation event of Overall Urban Design Integration and Enhancement and Downtown Area Detailed Urban Design of Dongyang City is specifically held.
Project location
Located in the middle of Zhejiang Province, Dongyang City is a provincial-level famous historical and cultural city, one of the national Top 100 countywide economy cities, a national health city and a national garden city. “Three mountains embrace two basins, and two basins encompass two rivers” is the truest portrayal of Dongyang City’s landform. As a thousand-year-old town with a history of 1,800 years so far, known as “a prosperous county of Wu” and “a county with picturesque mountains and waters”, Dongyang boasts enriched historical and cultural heritage and is renowned as “the key magnet of education, architecture and arts and crafts” as well as reputed for its film & television culture. The ecological environment of the downtown area is sound, with the elements of mountain, river, stream, farmland and city reinforcing each other, depicting the most beautiful living environment of Dongyang.
- Topographic features of Dongyang City
- Spatial development structure diagram of Dongyang City
- A local bird’s-eye view of Dongyang City
Solicitation methods and schedule
The solicitation event is divided into four stages:
Stage I-Qualification review stage: The applicants should submit application materials and conceptual proposal in time as required. The Host will select ten shortlisted application units from publicly applying design agencies (consortiums) through pre-qualification (including conceptual proposal) for Stage II.
Stage II-Conceptual scheme stage of overall urban design integration and enhancement: Shortlisted application units will, in accordance with requirements of the Design Brief, submit qualified deliverables to be reviewed by the expert review jury. The top five application units (without ranking) will enter Stage III.
Stage III – Conceptual scheme stage of downtown area key areas detailed urban design: The five shortlisted application units will submit the satisfactorily design deliverables according to the key areas (area and work content to be determined) determined by the host,The scheme review jury will review the submitted schemes, select the top three (ranked) by voting and recommend them to the Host with optimization review opinions put forward.
After full discussion between the Host and the scheme review experts, the ranking of the top three winners will be determined. The first-ranking application unit will be awarded with the development design consulting contract of the Project, and the other application units will be paid the corresponding design compensation.
Stage IV – The selected unit will subsequently undertake the downtown area detailed urban design.
Application requirements
- The solicitation plans to adopt open application without qualification restrictions. Units with relevant design experience from home and abroad may apply for participation. Application units should be independent legal person enterprises or institutions legally registered at home and abroad with valid business licenses or business registration certificates.
- Consortium with no more than three members are allowed to apply. All consortium parties must not participate in the solicitation event in their own names separately or form a consortium with other units.
- The solicitation event doesn’t accept application of individuals and individual groups.
- Teams with similar design experience will be prioritized:
- With international or domestic urban planning and design practice experience;
- With research capability and practical experience in detailed urban design of key urban areas;
- With rich experience in architecture, landscape, ecological design and public environment construction.
Solicitation schedule (tentative)
Kick off the solicitation event and release the official solicitation announcement in the middle of January 2023.
Release the announcement of pre-qualification results in the early February 2023.
Submit deliverables of Stage II (conceptual scheme of overall urban design integration and enhancement) and convene scheme review jury in the middle of March.
Submit deliverables of Stage III (conceptual scheme of key areas detailed urban design), convene scheme review jury, and determine the selected unit in the middle of May.
Declare the downtown area detailed urban design report at the end of October 2023.
Design scope
- Overall urban integration and enhancement design scope: The holistic area of the downtown area (including the ten-thousand-mu and hundred-billion-yuan master plan scope, the master plan scope of the High-Speed Railway New Town and Chengdong Street), with an area of about 177 square kilometers.

Overall urban integration and enhancement design scope
- Downtown area detailed urban design scope: The scope of downtown area is from the junction between Dongyang and Yiwu to Zhanqian Road of Jinhua-Ningbo Railway, from Nanshan Mountain to Beishan Mountain (including Shanglu Block and Civic Center Block), with an area of about 84 square kilometers.

Downtown area detailed urban design scope
Work objectives
Nowadays, because of industrialization-driven urbanization and rapid economic growth, the construction framework of Dongyang downtown area is quickly expanding and has been facing some bottlenecks, such as vague spatial mode of landscape city and gradual inundation of urban culture; urban functional section is loose and not compact enough; urban image and style are inferior and lack of iconic urban business cards; the construction of urban industrial platform is poor with implicit space of three industries; the areas along the Dongyang River only focus on the construction of the landscape belt but lack an overall landscape coordination of the two banks of one river, and the vitality needs to be improved, etc. All these problems are constraining the further improvement of the overall quality of Dongyang City.
The solicitation should be based on the three districts and three lines initially demarcated in the City’s current land spatial planning scheme, and focus on solving, but not limited to, the aforementioned problems. Through problem sort-out, target positioning, strategy formulation, action plan, project library and economic estimation, it will provide the orientation for Dongyang’s future urban development and guidelines for statutory plan revision, urban renewal and near-term development and construction.
Work content
With the evolving regional environment and the pressing urban development in all aspects, Dongyang has unfolded plenty of planning work on the urban development and blueprint conception in recent years. The core content of the solicitation event is to comprehensively coordinate with the relevant plannings in Dongyang City, draw effective and feasible parts on the basis of systematic sort-out and summarization. In combination with the new regional development situation and the actual local demands, a more consensual overall urban design development orientation, target strategy, layout structure and spatial morphology will be formed. To be implemented and operated by the operational capacity of the management authorities, the solicitation event will effectively lead the coordinated advancement of future urban development and construction and various management work of Dongyang downtown area.
Deliverables requirements
Stage I-Qualification review stage
Conceptual proposal should be submitted during the qualification review stage, with the following contents:
- Interpret the urban characteristics and spatial problems of Dongyang, and sort out the key focuses and difficulties of this competition;
- Analyze specific problems, put forward the urban design strategy and objectives, and establish the overall urban design framework;
- Put forward recommendations on the implementation and actual management of urban design based on the demonstration of urban design practice cases;
- Put forward recommendations on the design conditions, materials and design requirements of the solicitation.
Stage II- Conceptual scheme stage of overall urban design integration and enhancement
- Text of Planning Study Report
- Review boards
- Multimedia presentation documents or presentation (PPT/PDF format)
- Electronic files with afore-mentioned contents (flash stick)
Stage III-Conceptual scheme stage of downtown area detailed urban design
- Text of Planning Study Report
- Review boards
- Multimedia presentation documents
- Presentation document (PPT/PDF format)
- Relevant digital design documents
- Electronic files with afore-mentioned contents (flash stick)
All solicitation information is subject to the official solicitation documents of the Project.
Organizing institutions
Host: Dongyang Municipal Bureau of Planning and Natural Resources
Planning unit: Shenzhen Eden Advisory Co., Ltd.
Shenzhen Hebi Architectural Design Co., Ltd
Contact person: Ms. Tian 13312968676 (Monday through Friday 9:00-18:00 Beijing time)
Consultation e-mail: [email protected]
The announcement is published on AIMIR’s website now. If you want to know more following details regarding to this competition, please feel free to contact AIMIR. What’s more, you’re more than welcome to touch base with us if you need architectural visualization.