Xiajiancao grew up around the railway — generations of workers’ housing beside the depot, now absorbed into the city. The renewal threads the community’s industrial memory through its public spaces: a locomotive-head sculpture and carriage walls, a train-travellers’ garden, platform-story installations and neighbourhood service points along the daily routes between home, market and school.
The approach is repair rather than replacement. Lanes are repaved and lit, ground floors opened for community services — including a medical and elder-care station — and leftover spaces converted into pocket gardens. The result is a district that keeps its people and its past while gaining the comforts of the present.