Sizhou Hot Spring extends the experience of a thermal resort into the life of a town shaped by water and mountains, bringing bathing, exploration and dwelling into a continuous experience. Pools within the forest, streets along the water and clusters of courtyards accommodate wellness, holiday living and visitor services. Academies, museums and ceremonial spaces bring Sizhou’s local culture into the town’s public life.

The master plan is organised by a branching green network interwoven with winding waterways. Green corridors follow the banks and extend into the clusters, meeting waterfront paths, bridges and routes travelled by water. In places, paths run through planted roofs and cross above roads, separating pedestrian movement from vehicles vertically. The routes connect waterfronts, streets, courtyards and forest at different scales, extending the thermal experience beyond the pools to the wider experience of moving through and staying in the town.

The clusters draw on the inward gathering of traditional villages. The “Eight Blessings” residential groups and “Nine Formations” commercial groups are distributed along the water, assembling buildings around courtyards and shared open spaces. Streets and green corridors connect them, with water and gardens between the groups. Grey tiled roofs give the compact streets a varied profile; low planted roofs connect the buildings to the surrounding landscape. Alternating concentrations of buildings and open ground give quiet residential courts and lively commercial spaces their own scale within a continuous landscape.

The “Six Constellations” cultural nodes give local folklore and intangible heritage places that people can enter and use: academies accommodate learning and exchange, museums hold local memory, and ceremonial platforms make room for collective activities. Set among the clusters and routes, these places bring cultural encounters into everyday movement. Existing traditional villages are retained and adapted for new uses. New buildings remain below the ridgeline, maintaining the relationship between the settlements and the wooded hills.

Thermal bathing and water recreation support complementary winter and summer uses. Thermal pools in the forest provide the winter focus, while water activities sustain summer recreation; holiday accommodation, commerce and visitor services support use throughout the year. The modular arrangement of clusters also allows phased construction, so that different parts can be implemented in step with investment and operating needs while retaining the overall spatial order.