Announcement on the International Competition of Conceptual Planning and Urban Design for Zhuhai Central Station (Hezhou) Hub and Its Surrounding Areas

1.Project Overview

（1） Project Background

In February 2019, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council issued the Outline Development Plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, in which, it clearly proposed to leverage the leading role of the strong combinations of Macao-Zhuhai, and the strategic arrangement for Zhuhai and Macao to co-construct the Macao-Zhuhai pole of the Greater Bay Area.

In July 2020, the Construction Plan of Intercity Railway in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area was approved by the National Development and Reform Commission. In this plan, Zhuhai Central Station (Hezhou) Hub is positioned as one of main hubs among “the three main and four auxiliary hubs” in the west coastal area of the Pearl River Estuary, where it will connect to multiple routes of the radiating traffic network including Zhuhai-Zhaoqing HSR, Guangzhou-Zhuhai (Macao) HSR, Shenzhen-Zhuhai Intercity Railway, thus making it an important hub for Zhuhai and Macao to connect with the country.

To date, the feasibility study report of Zhuhai-Zhaoqing High-speed Railway and the hub projects has been completed, and the construction is expected to start by the end of 2021. The relevant preparation for Guangzhou-Zhuhai-Macao High-speed Railway has been also started, and the construction is planned to start in 2022. This International Competition of Conceptual Planning and Urban Design for Zhuhai Central Station (Hezhou) Hub and Its Surrounding Areas is resolved by Zhuhai Municipal Government, with a view to better exert the strategic value of Zhuhai Central Station (Hezhou) Hub.

（2）Project Location

Zhuhai is located on the west coastal area of the Pearl River Estuary, where it is close to Macao and within 100km of straight-line distance from Shenzhen, Hong Kong and Guangzhou, respectively. It is located in the core area of the inner bay of the Greater Bay Area and play an important strategic role in the integration of the Greater Bay Area. Zhuhai Central Station (Hezhou) Hub and its surrounding areas (“the Hub and Surrounding Areas”) are located in the central area of Zhuhai, with Modaomen Watercourse in the east, facing Guangdong-Macao In-Depth Cooperation Zone in Hengqin in the southeast, adjoining Hezhou as a prospective city center in the south, and Doumen Center and Jinwan Center in the west. Located in the geographical center of Zhuhai, this area is the strategic pivot in “undertaking the central influence and extending westward” of Zhuhai urban space, and an important link to promote the balanced development of Zhuhai in the east and the west.

Fig.1 Project Location in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Fig. 2 Project Location in the Territory of Zhuhai

（3）Competition Scope

Planning Convergence Scope: covering Hezhou prospective urban center, Jinwan Center and Doumen Center, with an area of approximately 86 km².

Conceptual Planning Scope of the Hub and Surrounding Areas: an area of 51km² enclosed by the river channels and highway-expressway network, extending to Modaomen Watercourse in the east, Niwanmen Watercourse in the west, Tiansheng River in the north, and Zhuhai Avenue in the south.

Urban Design Scope of the Hub Area: the scope of integrated urban design covers an area of 10 to 20-km² with the hub as the core and extending to the north and the east; centering on the core hub area, design teams can delineate themselves an area of 2-3 km² as the scope of detailed design.

Fig. 3 Planning Convergence Scope and Planning & Design Scope

2、Competition Objectives

As a national special economic zone, a regional central city and a pole city of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, Zhuhai now is moving towards the development goal of becoming a mega city, further enhancing the function of urban hub, and accelerating the upgrading of the city’s power and level. The international competition aims to solicit “Golden Ideas” globally, and according to the requirements of “global vision, international standards, distinctive Zhuhai features and future-oriented goals”, it will focus on accelerating the construction of Zhuhai as a modern international special economic zone with Chinese characteristics of the new era, an important gateway hub to Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, a core city on the west coast of the Pearl River Estuary and a model of high-quality development in the coastal economic belt.

Analyze the influence of HSR construction on Zhuhai’s urban development, define the strategic positioning of the hub and surrounding areas, and judge the development relations of the hub and surrounding areas with Hezhou prospective urban center, Jinwan Center and Doumen Center.

Fully leverage the strategic value of HSR hub, study the industry format of the HSR hub area, promote high-quality integrated development of “Station-Industry-City”, and accelerate the agglomeration of various factors.

Implement Zhuhai Conceptual Space Development Plan, and carry out planning and layout according to the urban organizational structure of “City-District-New Town (basic urban cluster)-Neighborhood”. 

Systematically consider the organic connection of HSR with railway transport, urban roads, and water transport, etc., and put forward a future-oriented, green, energy-saving, efficient and convenient comprehensive transportation system.

Guided by the principles of “ecology and low carbon, collaboration and integration, safety and resilience”, solve the problems such as low-lying terrain, insufficiency of soil source, and high flood risk, etc., and bring forward the resilient city management and control strategy. 

Leverage the good natural ecological background, properly deal with segmentation of the city caused by rivers and water network, viaduct network, and high voltage line network, etc., and construct continuous, complete and systematic ecological protection pattern and open space, to create a featured style of gateway waterfront landscape. 

Properly deal with the relations between short- and long-term development, and in combination with the HSR construction phasing, carry out overall arrangement on the phasing of integrated construction between the HSR and city.

3、Competition Content

（1）Conceptual Planning (51km²)

Conceptual planning shall fully consider the relations with each centers within the planning convergence scope of 86km², and respond to contents such as plan positioning, functional layout, scale control, comprehensive transport, overall planning of facilities, style and features, and phased construction, etc., through research on urban spatial pattern, industrial coordinated development and comprehensive transport connection. Its planning depth shall meet corresponding requirements of district planning.

（2）Urban Design 

1. Integrated Urban Design (10-20km²)

In combination with the conceptual planningand with the hub as the core, prepare the urban design scheme for the area of 10-20km² as shown in Fig. 3, “Planning Convergence Scope and Planning & Design Scope”. The urban design shall focus on construction scale, space form, traffic organization and development intensity, etc., whose detailing depth shall reach the depth of conceptual detailed design.

2. Detailed Urban Design (2-3km²)

Based on the integrated urban design, design teams shall delineate an area of 2-3 km² in the core hub area to carry out detailed urban design, which shall reach the depth of guiding the drafting of regulatory plan.

4、Organization

This international competition will be organized in Zhuhai Public Resources Trading Center (Website: http://ggzy.zhuhai.gov.cn), including three stages, i.e., the bidding (similar to the prequalification stage in usual competitions), competitive negotiation (similar to the design stage in usual competitions), and integration & detailing.  

This international competition is an open solicitation to design teams from all over the world. In the bidding stage (similar to the prequalification stage in usual competitions), 6 design teams will be selected from all bidders (including consortiums, the same below) to participate in the next-stage competitive negotiation (similar to the design stage in usual competitions). In the competitive negotiation stage, the design proposals submitted by 6 shortlisted teams will be evaluated and ranked. The first winner will be required to integrate the conceptual schemes with the assistance of the technical service unit before submitting to the Host for acceptance. 

The Host will organize 1-3 workshops thereafter, and the top three design teams shall send their chief designers to attend these workshops (those who are confirmed to be affected by COVID-19 pandemic can participate online) while the Host won’t pay any consulting fees for them. 

5、Eligibility

1.Domestic and international design firms can sign up for this competition, subject to no restrictions on qualifications, and consortiums are welcome;

2.Joint participation of outstanding design teams in various disciplines is encouraged. Priority will be given to the consortium that includes these disciplines such as urban planning, architecture, and transportation, etc.;

3.Each consortium should have no more than 4 members. No member of the consortium is allowed to register twice for the competition itself or in the name of another consortium. Violation of this rule shall be treated as invalid;

4.The members should sign a legally effective consortium agreement, which shall specify the division of work between members;

5.Priority will be given to design teams with rich practical design experience and successful cases in urban hub areas or urban design of urban core areas;

6.Participation by an individual or a team of individuals is not acceptable.

6、Registration

In this competition, the leading party of the consortium shall submit the electronic bidding documents to bid for this project via “the website of Zhuhai Public Resources Trading Center (http://ggzy.zhuhai.gov.cn/)”. The bidding documents shall include three parts, i.e., qualification documents, technical bidding documents (i.e., the concept proposal), and achievement & credit documents. Their requirements are as follows:  

（1）The qualification documents shall include the following materials:

1）ID proofs of the legal representative (or the authorized person for decision-making of overseas company), and certificate of legal representative (or the authorization letter for decision-making of overseas company);

2）Business license (Mainland bidders shall provide the color-scanned copy of the duplicate of the business license of the enterprise legal person issued by the administrative department of industry and commerce, and overseas bidders shall provide the color-scanned copy of business registration certificate.);

3）Consortium agreement (if having);

4）Letter of commitment for bid;

5）In addition, domestic bidders (or domestic members of the consortium) need to submit the information of the discredited person (can be the credit report downloaded from Credit China [http://www.creditchina.gov.cn/]), the valid credit report (or credit record) and bank credit report (the credit report [or credit record] can be the one downloaded from the website of Credit China; the bank credit report can be the one printed by the bank where the company’s account was opened). 

（2）The technical bidding documents (i.e. the concept proposal): they shall be submitted by design teams according to the requirements of relevant documents and the table of technical review elements. In the concept proposal, text and pictures can be included, and the project understanding shall be elaborated; key issues, as well as important and difficult points shall be identified, and preliminary ideas, thoughts or referable cases shall be put forward; technical staffing of the design team shall be provided; and methods, measures or design process to reduce the impact of the epidemic on the design shall be explained. Among these contents, the part of elaborating project understanding, identifying key issues and difficult points, and proposing the preliminary ideas, thoughts or referable cases, shall be within 10 pages in total (single-side, in A3 size); and the part of presenting the technical team and describing the methods, measures, or design process to reduce the impact of the epidemic on the design, shall be within 20 pages in total (single-side, in A3 size); Thus, the total length shall be within 30 pages (single-side, in A3 size) (excluding the front, back covers and the table of contents).

（3）The achievement & credit documents shall include the following materials:

1）Similar project experience (past project experience similar to this project; supporting materials, such as key pages of the contract or outcome documents, etc., shall be provided; no more than 5 projects);

2）Other representative project experience (the other representative project experience of the bidder; supporting materials, such as key pages of the contract or outcome documents, etc., shall be provided; no more than 5 projects);

3）Awards won by the company (awards won by the bidder in recent years, and supporting materials such as the award certificate shall be provided; no more than 5 awards; they shall only be the urban design award of urban hub areas or urban core areas).

7、Schedule (Provisional)

The schedule is as follows:

Note: The timetable above is applied in Beijing Time. The Host reserves the right to amend the agenda.

8、Related Fees

（1）Related fees (tax-inclusive) of this international competition are as follows:

First place: can receive design bonus of RMB Four Million Yuan (¥4,000,000), and the fee of design detailing and integration of RMB One Million Five Hundred Thousand Yuan (¥1,500,000);

Second place: can receive design bonus of RMB Three Million Yuan (¥3,000,000);

Third place: can receive design bonus of RMB Two Million Yuan (¥2,000,000);

The fourth to sixth places: Each of them can receive design bonus of RMB One Million Five Hundred Thousand Yuan (¥1,500,000).

（2）Bidding agent fee: the six winners shall pay the agent fee to the bidding agent within 20 working days after the bid winning announcement is released. The first winner shall pay RMB Forty-nine Thousand Two Hundred and Fifty Yuan (¥49,250.00); the second winner shall pay RMB Thirty-one Thousand Yuan (¥31,000.00); the third winner shall pay RMB Twenty-three Thousand Yuan (¥23,000.00); and the fourth to sixth winners shall respectively pay RMB Nineteen Thousand Yuan (¥19,000.00).

（3）Payment terms: The Host will pay the corresponding bonus to each shortlisted design team within 30 days after the contract is signed. When the first winner completed the detailing and integration, the fee of design detailing and integration will be paid within 30 days after the deliverables are approved by the Host. When applying for payment, design teams shall submit the confirmation form of project schedule confirmed by all parties concerned, application for payment, and valid invoice with equal amount of PRC to the Host. The Host will only pay the fees to domestic members of the consortium in RMB.

9、Organizers

Host: Zhuhai Municipal Bureau of Natural Resources

Technical Support: Zhuhai Institute of Urban Planning & Design

Shenzhen Urban Transport Planning Center Co., Ltd.

Organization & Planning: Benecus Consultancy Limited

Bidding Agent: Zhuhai Material Bidding Co., Ltd.

10、Information Disclosure & Contact

All relevant information of this competition is subject to that announced in the official website of Zhuhai Public Resources Trading Center (http://ggzy.zhuhai.gov.cn/).           

（https://www.szdesigncenter.org）、ABBS（https://www.abbs.com.cn/）

Promotion Websites: 

Shenzhen Center for Design  (https://www.szdesigncenter.org), ABBS (https://www.abbs.com.cn/)

Enquiry Hotline:

Mr. Zhang  +86 136 3160 0111

Mr. Chang  +86 189 2808 9695

Ms. Zhou   +86 132 6557 2115

Mr. Rao    +86 139 2694 7573

Email: zhuhaiHZ@qq.com 

Design teams that are interested in this competition please register, complete relevant information, and open the bidding function of construction project in advance at the website of Zhuhai Public Resources Trading Center (http://ggzy.zhuhai.gov.cn/). The leading party (main body) of the consortium shall apply for and get the CA digital certificate for the website of Zhuhai Public Resources Trading Center before the bidding deadline, in order to upload the bidding documents and carry out relevant operation.

All information above is subject to that released by Zhuhai Public Resources Trading Center (http://ggzy.zhuhai.gov.cn/).