We’re excited to share that IFLA AAPME International Awards officially announced that OKRA, together with MLA+ and Shenzhen IBR, has won the Outstanding Award in the category Analysis & Masterplanning for our landscape and urban design project in the coastal area of Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone in Shenzhen, China.

In this category, a total of 12 projects excelled in promoting climate change adaptation, responsible practice, and the pursuit of joint efforts to address issues of resilience building. There were 280 international entries.

Our winning entry is the project Nature as Leverage to Lead Coastal Urban Development in Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone. We established a design framework for mountain, sea, and land-development that respects the Chinese historical water strategy while combining it with the modern Dutch approach. The result is a future-proof coastal defence that integrates engineering and landscape design providing a vibrant sequence of protected spaces along this beautiful 12 kilometres long coast.

Our seawater and freshwater strategies make space for buffer areas that put protection and ecology first, restoring existing ecosystems and shaping a ‘sponge’ development that boosts the quality and resiliency of nature and urban spaces: an elastic landscape!

The jury praises the project for its ‘highly detailed consideration of climate resilience concepts that recognise the complex conditions of the site and in response, strives to mitigate, integrate and adapt to the landscape through its design framework’.