SoBA draws on “curves and rhythm” of music for The Orchestra Park in China

Yellow accents enliven the viewing platforms, performance areas and play spaces at this urban park in Kunshan, China, completed by local studio SoBA.

Named The Orchestra Park, the project has transformed a vacant urban lot in the Huaqiao Economic Development Zone into an 8,500-square-metre park, designed to preserve an existing area of wetland and trees and provide recreational spaces for the community.

SoBA drew on the area’s heritage of sizhu music – a traditional ensemble of stringed and wind instruments – for its design, creating curved, flowing forms and interactive trumpet-like music installations.

SoBA has created The Orchestra Park in China

“The design carefully respects and preserves the natural landscape, including the mature trees and wetlands, while also addressing the local community’s need for recreational space,” SoBA founding partner Ruo Wang told Dezeen.

“One of the biggest challenges was integrating park facilities without disrupting the ecological balance,” he continued. “To solve this, we kept interventions minimal and wove cultural references into the design.”

“We took inspiration from the shapes of Jiangnan sizhu or ‘silk and bamboo’ orchestra instruments, using their graceful curves and rhythm to guide the layout of the park.”

It provides recreational spaces for the local community

The layout of The Orchestra Park is organised around a winding running track that cuts through its centre, dividing the existing wetlands and woods to the north from the new recreational spaces to the south, which sit slightly lower.

The newly-created areas include a skatepark, fitness playground, “musical fountain plaza”, and an outdoor performance space overlooked by stepped seating, all of which are defined by wave-like shapes.

These spaces are tied together with bright yellow accents, which have been used to highlight the music installations, balustrades and planters, as well as the lines on the running track and a series of tunnels through a curved wall.

At the park’s eastern end, bathrooms, changing and security facilities are housed within small cylindrical structures topped by leaf-shaped canopies of aluminium, also finished in yellow.

The Orchestra Park’s design draws on the “curves and rhythm” of music

To the northwest, a viewing platform extends out over the adjacent wetland, while to the east, a small bridge leads to a winding path. This path completes a loop around The Orchestra Park, connecting it with neighbouring residential communities.

“The most striking feature of the design is the way we’ve brought together nature, culture, and recreation,” Wang explained. “The park makes the most of the site’s varied topography, with the woodlands on higher ground and the recreational area at a lower level.”

Yellow accents enliven the park

Other parks recently completed in China include the Tianjin 4A Sports Park, which was recently completed by Ballistic Architecture Machine with bold colours and forms, and Cotton Park, a mixed-use community space that AIM Architecture created in a series of former oil silos.