The pocket park located on the side of Yongjia South Road in Haidian District, Beijing, has become a good place for nearby residents to take their children for a walk. Photo by our reporter Chen Haibo/Guangming Photo

Citizens are relaxing and playing in Lehui Small Park in Xuhui District, Shanghai. Xinhua News Agency

A pocket park in Shuangqiao District, Chengde City, Hebei Province

[Ecological Focus]

As China's urbanization process enters the stock era, urban construction has entered a new stage dominated by local improvement and "micro-space" transformation. As a new form of urban open space, pocket parks are not only the most direct community activity venues, but also an important carrier for ecological space to be suitable for production and living space.

In recent years, many pocket parks have been scattered in the streets and alleys of the city like jade beads. They are small and exquisite, providing a place for rest and entertainment for busy urbanites, allowing people to enjoy the breath of nature and poetic life in their fast-paced lives.

Do you still remember when the "little happiness" of being in a pocket park became commonplace? Do you realize that pocket parks, once a "supporting role" to set off the main scenery of the city, have become the most frequently photographed "stars" in the city's open spaces?

The beauty of a small space, putting happiness in the "pocket"

Different from the citizen parks, suburban parks, forest parks, etc. with towering trees and wide greenery, pocket parks are mostly "hidden" in street corners and alleys, with greenery everywhere, small and clever, exquisite and lively, and always have unexpected beauty.

Overlooking the Caojiadu Garden at the intersection of Kangding Road and Yuyao Road in Jing'an District, Shanghai, the graceful nautilus curve layout is pleasing to the eye. The huge camphor tree with lush branches and leaves isolates the hustle and bustle of the city; the dense bamboo walls, evergreen shrubs, and colorful hydrangeas are clearly layered and complement each other, providing citizens with a full range of "green benefits".

"Nowadays, people's expectations for parks and green spaces have changed a lot. It is not enough to rely on "greenness" alone." Jin Yunfeng, a professor at the Department of Landscape Architecture of Tongji University, told reporters that the park that everyone is looking forward to now can be a leisure space or a sports exercise space, and it is better to be a public cultural space with style, culture, and activities.

Isn't this the advantage of pocket parks? Flexible site selection, greenery when you open the window, and you can enter the park, and you can have both entertainment and fitness...

"This outdoor smart gym has a good environment and new equipment, I am so happy!" Aunt Wang, a citizen who is exercising at Maple Leaf Square on Jianshe Road in Chengdu, Sichuan, praised the smart fitness facilities of this pocket park. With the blessing of technology, she can see the data such as calorie consumption and number of exercises in real time during exercise, and adjust her exercise intensity at any time.

Many cities have also incorporated local historical and cultural elements into the construction of pocket parks. In the Xinchangshantou Ancient Tree Park in Qingxi Town, Dongguan City, Guangdong Province, a registered, 500-year-old Yunnan rough-leaved tree has mottled bark and is covered with vicissitudes, but it still shades the young and old in the village; Jingyun Garden, located in Xicheng District, Beijing, is full of Liyuan culture and Peking Opera elements. A stone tablet with the words "Birthplace of Peking Opera" shows the cultural content accumulated in it... In pocket parks, history and culture are inadvertently connected with people's daily lives.

"For pocket parks, design is not the protagonist. The city and the things that have settled in the city, that is, people's emotions, memories, and stories, are the protagonists." Jin Yunfeng said that pocket parks not only improve the city's appearance, but also firmly "hold" the happiness of the people.

Each has its own beauty, and the satisfaction of the people is the "gold standard"

As "seeing green when opening the window" and "encountering green around the corner" become new daily routines, people's expectations for pocket parks have also entered a new stage.

"The success of pocket park construction depends on factors such as design, management and community participation." Wang Zhongjie, deputy chief engineer of the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design and dean of the Landscape Architecture and Landscape Research Branch, believes that only by fully considering the natural environment, community needs and the principles of sustainable development can an excellent pocket park be built.

Located on Xinhua Road, Changning District, Shanghai, the pocket park's winding path was once shaded by sage, baby's breath, and dwarf cattails; the reflective mirrors on both sides infinitely expanded the visual space, and the quiet and mysterious design once made it a "net celebrity check-in spot". However, due to the lack of long-term and effective maintenance, it is now overgrown with weeds, paper scraps and plastic packaging can be seen everywhere, and the lively scene of people coming and going in the past is no longer there.

There are also some pocket parks that are ingenious in design, but they are worth pondering in terms of functional maintenance. For example, some have set up "reading corners" with free books for citizens to read, but now the bookcases are empty; some have arranged seats made of wire mesh to match the avant-garde and fashionable design theme, but people avoid them because the garbage in the gaps is inconvenient to clean.

"Today, the biggest challenge facing pocket parks is that the management and maintenance content has undergone a qualitative change." Jin Yunfeng said that different spatial endowments, construction ideas, and neighborhood environments determine that it is difficult for pocket parks to form a unified management and operation model. This requires us to be ingenious in design while also doing a good job of "embroidery work" in management. Only the satisfaction of the people is the "gold standard".

With the popularity of pocket parks, the comprehensive demand for their functions has been mentioned more and more. How to balance the characteristic design and comprehensive functional requirements of pocket parks?

"Each pocket park should be beautiful in its own way, so that each pocket park can integrate with the surrounding urban space in terms of scale, form and function, and become a spatial support for the citizens' beautiful life." Jin Yunfeng believes that it is also necessary to build a pocket park system based on the historical culture and natural ecological foundation of the city, so that it can achieve sustainable development, operation and maintenance, and ultimately achieve "beauty in harmony".

Both inside and outside, do a good job in the "micro classroom" for harmonious coexistence between man and nature

Through hard work on "external skills", pocket parks have attracted more and more citizens and become a good place for leisure and entertainment; through fine work on "internal skills", pocket parks have enriched the urban ecosystem, providing citizens with an excellent place to observe nature and understand ecology, and becoming a "micro classroom" and "training ground" for harmonious coexistence between man and nature.

The East Gate Pocket Park of the Temple of Heaven in Beijing was transformed on the basis of the original green space. It is based on the streamlined permeable pavement and is decorated with small trees, shrubs, ground cover flowers and other plants. Walking in it, it feels like being in a pure natural forest. Here, you can not only feel the beauty of nature, but also observe the growth process of plants up close and understand their characteristics and habits.

"Pocket parks are "green islands" around ordinary people, which are convenient for everyone to learn how the ecosystem works anytime and anywhere and experience the connection between nature and life." Wang Zhongjie said that pocket parks are miniature models of ecosystems, and the environmental protection methods and techniques learned by people in them can be transferred to real natural environments, thereby promoting sustainable development and environmental protection.

In the Yunfeng Garbage Classification Theme Pocket Park in Tiexi District, Shenyang, interactive classification puzzles, classification magnetic mazes and other games attracted children of different ages. "Here you can not only relax and exercise, but also learn knowledge, which is really killing two birds with one stone." The integration of special content allows citizens to fully experience the significance of garbage classification in the "micro space" of pocket parks.

In Wang Zhongjie's view, the rich interactive scenes provided by pocket parks not only deepen people's understanding of ecosystems and awareness of nature protection, but also improve everyone's ability to solve practical problems. And this kind of subtle ecological education allows people to cope with more complex ecological environments.

In order to expand the influence of pocket park ecological education, Wang Zhongjie suggested combining pocket park ecological education with school curriculum and public education to form a multi-level and multi-channel education system, and establish a cooperative network through schools, communities, environmental protection organizations and pocket park management agencies to jointly promote people's awareness and participation in ecological environmental protection.

"With the continuous improvement of citizens' ecological awareness, we expect pocket parks to bring ecological benefits to the people while also contributing more to the green development of the city." Wang Zhongjie said.

(Reporter Zhang Xiaohua)

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