Located directly by the Yellow Sea, Penglai city is fast emerging as the hottest domestic tourist destination of China. The Chinese tourism industry is in a fast growing stage with people now being more interested in holiday spending at favored locations rather than just engaging in sightseeing. One such location that is fast catching the eye of the masses is Penglai. Penglai, therefore, intending to cash upon this new interest, and with an eye on encouraging holiday spending tourism, has decided to allocate reserve lands, as well as a huge chunk of its budget on architecture and infrastructure for the construction of holiday homes.
Arcas Europe, a leading architecture firm, has suggested a master plan for enhancing the tourist potential of Penglai. The plan spreads over an area of 1,700 ha, with 1,224 ha dedicated to the marina and 510 ha to the tennis complex and golf course and intends to adopt the urban Eco Compact City approach (ECC) for development of Penglai on the tourism industry circuit. By promoting the ECC model, Arcas Europe also attempts to balance social and economic sustainability of the area with land and resource use patterns, thereby endeavoring to minimize energy consumption, resource use and environmental pollution.
The green architecture plan of Arcas Europe features the Marina Town Centre as the central hub, with several small neighborhoods, linked with a green and open space network of parks and gardens, surrounding it. These neighborhoods consisting of about 60,500 holiday housing units would include flats, terrace houses, courtyard houses and cottages in addition to a 27-hole golf course, equestrian center, a championship tennis center and a theme park. With its proposed master plan, Arcas Europe has therefore not just attempted establishing a rational urban footprint but has also tried to portray Penglai’s façade as a vibrant waterfront.
