The Guancheng River waterfront proposal begins by reopening the covered river and making it a principal setting for public life in the old city. Its approach to composite green urban design connects scattered public spaces, historic sites and commercial areas through a riverside greenway that branches into surrounding streets. Routes along the water and pedestrian links across it work together, bringing the waterfront into everyday journeys through the neighbourhoods and providing a framework for renewal on both banks.

Folded, staggered terraces draw on the rising and falling profiles of the region’s karst peak clusters to create places for walking and staying. Street-level paths, sunken squares and platforms close to the water occupy different heights, linked by ramps, steps and footbridges. Narrower stretches provide continuous riverside routes; broader stretches accommodate performances on platforms over the water and gatherings along the banks. The stepped edges connect levels and provide seating facing the river. Open activity spaces alternate with quieter places enclosed by trees, allowing different rhythms of public life to share the waterfront.

Landscape and development are combined through vertical layering: public landscape occupies the ground, commercial spaces sit partly below it, and parking is placed underground. The folded profiles of low riverside buildings continue the terraced ground, with planting extending onto roofs and platforms. Taller buildings rise at intervals behind them, incorporating greenery into setbacks and openings. Riverbanks, roof gardens and buildings together form an undulating urban landscape. Walking routes and public activities extend across several levels, expanding the open space of the dense city into a three-dimensional network.

Historical traces of lost bridges and ancient springs inform a sequence of memory courtyards embedded along the banks. Historical images and writing on the walls, together with trees and water within, give urban memory a setting that people can enter, read and inhabit. Enclosed courtyards alternate with open waterfront squares, bringing encounters with history into an everyday walk. The renewal strategy likewise begins with public life: public and cultural activities activate the riverfront before development is introduced in stages, allowing environmental improvement, historical memory and neighbourhood life to develop together.