富阳水上运动中心

Fuyang Water Sports Centre lies at Huashusha village in Dongzhou Subdistrict, Fuyang District, Hangzhou, on the south bank of the North Branch of the Fuchun River and facing the retreat where Huang Gongwang painted 'Dwelling in the Fuchun Mountains'. It staged rowing and canoe sprint plus canoe slalom at the 19th Asian Games, with 30 gold medals decided on the water. Work began in March 2019 and the venue was accepted in March 2021; the 192-mu site carries about 67,000 sqm of floor area, including 22,000 sqm underground, in a building 24 m high, 40 to 120 m wide and 550 m long, six storeys above ground. The design borrows the painting's mountains for its form and its water for the landscape, an arc-shaped volume braced by two skewed arch spans that reads as a stretched letter H, with a 950 sqm water garden in the courtyard. The roof is covered with soil to create more than 20,000 sqm of sky garden, among the largest in East China, lifting the site's green ratio to 45 per cent. Racing happens on the river itself: a 2,150 by 150 metre rowing and sprint course with nine lanes and 3,000 seats, and to the east a 281 by 8 metre slalom channel with a 4.5 m drop, fed by six pumps, holding 16 downstream and 6 upstream gates with 900 seats, watched over by a finish tower cantilevered above the water. Certified as a two-star green building, the centre keeps part of its sporting role after the Games and converts to a water-sports resort hotel, with the roof garden open to the public. Six functional zones — spectator services, venue management, media and sponsors, competition management, indoor training and athlete reception, and boat storage — are arranged along the water, and spectators reach the finish area on foot along the bank.