Langfang hosts 11th China Design Festival

    Langfanghosted The Eleventh (2016) China Design Festival and unveiled the“Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Area Green Design Corridor” in its efforts to promote the development of green technology in the Hebei province. CECTV visited the event and came back with exclusive photos. 

（Photos: Sanni Saarelainen ）

    LangfangMunicipalPeople’s Government, Daxing District People's Government and Dragon Design Foundation (DDF) hosted The Eleventh (2016) China Design Festival in the 25th and 26th of May in Langfang, which is a city of +800 000 population in Hebei province, between Beijing and Tianjin.

    The theme of this year’s festival was “Design Interpreting the World” and accordingly, the festival unveiled the“Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Area Green Design Corridor,” purposed to promote the development of design industry in surrounding Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei area.

（Photos: Sanni Saarelainen ）

    The festival brought top domestic and international design professionals and enterprises together and functioned as a platform for design industry innovation exchange. Effectively, this platform was used for sharing information and other resources to spur new investments involving green technology. The event brief explained that “the Festival is beneficial to making design industry as leading industry of economic and social development in Langfang,” and also pointed out that the festival should improve the “core competitiveness and brand influence of Langfang design industry”.

（Photos: Sanni Saarelainen ）

    This is not the first and probably not the last time Langfang name will be linked with green design. In fact, the event should be seen as a step in Langfang’s longer path towards eco-smartness, as the city won Merit Award in 2010 for its Langfang Eco-Smart City Master Plan, which included a city centre transportation hub, a northern gateway cultural corridor, and an extensive wetland and aquifer system. The Chinese government has already invested billions of dollars toward infrastructure in the region, referred to as the Beijing-Tianjin Growth Corridor, while preparing for nearly 300 million people to rise to the middle class over the next 20 years.

    Global eco-city examples of Stockholm in Sweden, Auroville in India, and Freiburg in Germany have proven that urban planning could hoist the way to sustainable living, and Chinese green efforts, such as Langfang Eco-Smart City Master Plan — if fully realised — could provide timely, essential models for sustainable urban living at a much larger scale, in the massive future China. Until then, promotive events, such as the 11th China Design Festival in Langfang, are the visible milestones and gentle suggestions for the construction investment to turn greener in this part of the world, too.