Yunling Mountain Golf Resort Open Space - Kunming, Yunnan, China

The parks and open space design for all of the Yunling Mountain Golf Resort was conceived as a connected system of linkages between domesticated residential areas and surrounding golf course and pine woodland areas. The first goal of this approach was to provide a recreational alternative system of transportation for community residents and also to provide movement corridors for the local wildlife to obtain food, water, and shelter without needing to relocate from the site.  The second goal was to open the site up from what might otherwise have been a high degree of imperviousness, so that natural drainage flows and infiltration might continue to be accommodated, lessening the need for expensive stormwater infrastructure.  The open space system helps the residential neighborhood configurations “shake hands” with the natural patterns and processes of the site.  Sub-neighborhoods are created between linkages in the open space network.  The network itself is both designed and ecologically restored to various levels of natural functions.  Within the designed elements of the open space are located nine parks.  Three of these are provided adjacent to the golf course or to building amenities to leverage the value of these sites and open views of the golf course to all residents.