Hua Qiang Bei is a landmark within the city of Shenzhen and is even well-known throughout China, famous for its being one of the biggest electronic and digital technologies and components market. However, this landmark lacks a clear physical form - something memorable, something iconic.

The street is supposed to be public, but the buildings and contents which create the essential identity of the street are all private – and therefore lacking any common identity or means of control.

Besides, many of these contents are hidden in buildings that are out-of-date. While some buildings have made cheap modifications to their facades to make themselves look better, the core infrastructure has not been updated and will have to be rebuilt in the coming years.

However, with the current construction of the new metro line which after the completion, there will be 4 metro lines converging within this area, we can take advantage of the current situation and re-open Hua Qiang Bei as a pedestrian street. Then the street becomes a continuous surface from wall to wall encouraging more and various activities,  creating better built environment conditions, discouraging the use of private car and other motorized vehicles which then resulting in much less traffic on the surrounding roads, more available spaces for greeneries and social activities, and creating an Urban Lounge which then enhance and enrich the unique character of Hua Qiang Bei.

And now the image, the identity and the space of the public street will all be able to be controlled by the city.  And the public street will determine the rules and conditions for the buildings around it, not the other way around.

We don’t know what changes the future might have in store for Hua Qiang Bei. Therefore, we have designed a hardware component system which, like a circuit board or a computer, can accommodate virtually any kind of content - both 2D and 3D, commercial and cultural. And with the similar function of the circuit board which all the nodes are connected to enable the function of the gadgets, the metro, and commercial entrances to the underground are the node access for people to the street. These and other infrastructures on the ground are then converted into connection nodes in the virtual world. The paths are the physical network that moves the people to the different nodes creating street life and activities to the place.