Tianjin Da Dao - The Music of Landscape
'Da Dao' means great highway, and this bid was for the landscaping of a new 8 lane highway that ran for 37km from Tianjin to Tanggu, in China. The brief was to design the landscape of the 10m central separation zone, and the 30m ecological protection green zone on either side of the road.
The bid gave us the chance to develop a document and logo around the central theme of 'The Music of Landscape'. We referred to this theme in order to echo the way in which the landscape changed and responded to the terrain along it's route - we felt that when you walk through a landscape, you see every detail and hear the smallest sound. Driving through a landscape is different. Viewed at speed, your perception is defined by shifts in the rhythm of the landscape unfolding before you. The landscape, like a piece of music, shifts it's tempo and changes it's mood as you move through it.
An identity was developed that used the shape of the highway and repeated this so that it formed a musical score graphic, 'notes' were placed along the score which corresponded with the changes in character areas along the route. The road was divided into 7 stages and we developed a name and a series of symbols to signify these different character zones. From Tianjin to Tenggu, these were: Urban Colour, Water and Forest, Urban Future, Natural Wetland, Farmland and Village, Green Urban Wind, and finally, Harbour of Sculpture.
