As an important transportation hub in urban context, the square of the high-speed railway station accommodates a large number of people and traffic flows and facilitates the connection and transfer of various transportation modes both within and beyond the city. It functions not only as an urban transportation space and gateway but also as urban open space (Yu, 2013). The station square is chiefly developed jointly with the surrounding land, and is mainly comprised of small supermarkets, restaurants, shops and hotels, to meet the needs of various people such as travelers, residents and station staff. The concept of station square is proposed in our train specification (Ministry of Railways of the People’s Republic of China, 2018), where it is considered more meaningful as a transition space between the station building and the surrounding land. However, there are no clear requirements for this space in the UK’s specification guidance, leading to a tendency for station squares to be simply designed (Network Rail, 2011). Over the past several decades, the design of railway stations in the UK has gradually focused on the design of station squares. For example, in the regeneration of King’s Cross Railway Station, a white canopy was constructed to redesign the station square, making the site a vibrant public space within the area³. Unlike European railway passenger stations, where the design of station squares is completely undermined, the design of China’s railway station squares generally consider both public space and ecological landscape. The station squares are generally paved with a large area to meet specific green space requirements. The use of sculptures, water features, greenery, paving, and other landscape elements creates a landscape environment that harmonizes with the transport interchange. At the same time, sufficient passenger resting places are provided within and around the square to offer leisure spaces for passengers and surrounding residents to relax, play and socialize (Wang, 2016). Locality is a complex formed by the interaction of natural and human factors, which reflects people’s comprehensive understanding of space and time, human activity factors, natural and human environment (Cai, 2006). As the “gateway” to the city, the design of the station square should exhibit a distinctive sense of locality to fully reflect the cultural heritage and charm of the city so that people can learn about the local history, customs, and contemporary life during their journey. For example, the station square of the “Sakae” hub in Japan is a park with the theme of green space. The lawns form an urban oasis with the cherry blossom, Japan’s national flower, maple trees and seasonal flowers (Yu, 2013). Xi’an North Station Square in Shaanxi Province, China, is designed with paving and greenery in the Han and Tang styles, emphasizes the continuation of Xi’an’s urban design orientation through a blend of ancient capital elements and green corridor design (Zhang, 2019).

China was one of the first countries to engage in agricultural production and develop an agricultural landscape, boasting a long history of farming civilization. Early inhabitants lived in groups, reclaimed farmland, hunted and fished, and managed to reproduce and evolve (Wang and Wu, 2019). In the 21st century, urbanization and industrialization have accelerated, leading to a concentration of population, a lack of arable land, a decrease in resources and a deepening conflict with the natural environment (Zhao et al., 2018). This has led urban dwellers to rethink the ecological function of agriculture. Simultaneously, as the living standard of urban inhabitants continue to escalate, there arises a burgeoning demand for more leisure activities after work, which requires cities to provide the necessary environment for a vast array of cultural, educational and recreational activities. Humans actively manage agroecosystems to optimize the supply of food, fiber and fuel. These ecosystem services derived from agriculture, categorized as provisioning services by the recent Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, are contingent upon a complex interplay of supporting and regulating services that function as vital inputs into the production process (e.g., soil fertility and pollination). At the same time, the cultural services provided by agroecosystems should not be overlooked (e.g., spirituality and recreation) (Zhang et al., 2007). In other words, people need agriculture not only to provide food but also to play an active role in many aspects of urban ecology, culture, and life. Urban agricultural landscapes are an important part of agroecosystem services and hold a pivotal role in enhancing human living environments while safegurarding ecological balance. In this context, individuals increasingly disconnected from nature have begun to appreciate the services and value of agriculture in urban life and ecology, developing a growing interest in farming civilization and agricultural culture. This shift has propelled the rapid development of urban agricultural landscapes.

In 1935, the Japanese scholar Shikuro Aoshika first proposed the definition of urban agriculture in his Economic Geography of Agriculture, where he defined urban agriculture as “a new form of agriculture that is distributed within a residential community or commercial building area within a city, or in the suburbs of a city, as distinct from traditional agriculture” (Lu, 2020). Luc J.A. Mougeot, in 2003 further defined urban agriculture as “an industry located within or on the edge of cities that recycles natural resources; while optimally utilizing urban human resources, products and services to produce, process or sell a variety of food, non-food products or services for the city” (Benedict et al., 2006). The concept of urban agriculture has been widely accepted worldwide as relevant experts and scholars in Australia, Japan, and Korea continue to refine their research. The main types are tourism-based agriculture, facility-based agriculture and specialty-based agriculture in Japan, community-based agriculture in Europe and the United States, civic parks in Germany, and agricultural technology parks in Singapore. In addition, urban agriculture in China emerged in the 1990s, with the main types including sightseeing farms, leisure farms, rooftop farms, educational farms and agricultural parks.

Agricultural landscapes are conceptualized as evolved cultural landscapes—a product of the long-term interaction between regional farming practices and the natural ecology, rather than merely as static visual scenery, but, composed by spatial units characterized by the interrelation of different but identifiable components such as natural conditions, farming systems, cultural heritage, and those who manage the land (Antrop, 2005; Paracchini et al., 2016). Agricultural elements refer to natural materials applied to the landscape without secondary processing, including farmland, crops, fruit trees, vegetables, livestock, farming tools, machinery, farming culture and a series of other elements related to agricultural activities, as well as the natural environmental factors that serve human production and life, taken from the production and life process of a particular region and agriculture-related materials (Yu, 2010). Agricultural elements can be divided into material and immaterial aspects. The material aspects are mainly derived from life and production activities, manifesting in both the processes and outcomes of production, and are closely tied to daily life; the immaterial aspects are rooted in traditional culture, directly connected to local folk customs and serve as a microcosm of residents’ lives, reflecting the development of local society. In this study, urban agricultural elements are understood as comprising components such as the types of construction, crops grown, farming culture and other relevant parts of urban agriculture. These elements are applied to the site in conjunction with landscape design.

The landscape presentation of agricultural elements represents a synthesis of agricultural elements and landscape. Through excavating and analyzing the unique characteristics of agricultural elements, the landscape serves as a vehicle for these elements. Although the urban agricultural landscape has its unique sensory qualities, most of the urban landscapes today remain primarily static and ornamental. Relying solely on visual stimulation of this single mode is difficult to fulfill the necessities of tourists and agricultural landscape in providing people with a visual experience at the same time as well as auditory, olfactory, taste, and tactile experience. For example, it provides people with a participatory experience of planting activities, allowing them to experience plant growth and learn about nature by touching plants with their hands. Furthermore, unlike traditional urban landscapes, most plants grown in urban agricultural landscapes are edible, including food, fruits and vegetables, and edible flowers. These are no longer just objects of admiration. Still, visitors can taste them, enhancing their tourism experience by stimulating their taste buds. In addition, aromatic plants in agricultural landscapes and hardscapes such as fountains can lead to auditory and olfactory experiences. This view is supported by Carneiro et al. (2015), which assessed tourists’ views on the rural landscape of two Portuguese villages and found that vegetation types and colors and architectural heritage became the primary experiential components for tourists, followed by a diverse array of non-visual sensory stimuli, including sound, smell and taste. Thus, integrating agricultural elements into the urban landscape will increase people’s interaction with the landscape and provide a unique sensory experience for visitors, thus enhancing their sense of place attachment. Similarly, a Swiss study examining residents’ aesthetic preferences for typical agricultural landscape elements in the Swiss lowlands showed that seasonal variations in landscape elements strongly influenced preference ratings. Flowering plants, in particular, received the highest preference ratings during their flowering phase due to the sensory stimulation they provided through the use of colors, smells and textures. The findings of this research help capture the aesthetic value of agricultural areas and may inform political decisions regarding direct payments for agricultural aesthetic services (Junge et al., 2015). It, therefore, validates the argument of Uzzell (1989) and Chen et al. (2009) that visitors’ perception or evaluation of environmental aesthetics is frequently shaped by a confluence of multi-sensory stimuli, encompassing the integration of diverse senses such as sight, smell, hearing and touch.

In recent years, with the incorporation of agricultural elements into urban landscape design, urban people can also see the pastoral scene, so that agricultural landscape can play the social and ecological value in addition to the production value and economic value. This has led to the emergence of various agricultural cultural theme parks, such as sightseeing agricultural parks, agricultural theme parks, leisure farms, rooftop agricultural parks, educational agricultural parks, homestay farms, etc. However, there exists a notable gap in research pertaining the application of agricultural elements to urban infrastructure, especially, the landscape of high-speed railway station square. In addition, most current research on agricultural landscapes still focuses on assessing visual features based on public consensus, which seriously neglects the influence of other sensory experiences (Luo et al., 2022). As urban transport space, gateway space as well as leisure space for travelers and neighboring residents to relax, play and communicate, it is significant to integrate urban agriculture into the planning and design of the station squares. This integration can help preserve agricultural culture and provide a place of shared exchange for more passengers and residents who enjoy gardening in the city.

Therefore, within this context, this study aims to delve into the underlying connotation of Huzhou’s agricultural elements, extract the design elements from the landscape, present Huzhou’s agricultural culture in the manner of landscape, and realize the preservation and inheritance of Huzhou’s agriculture. This study takes Huzhou East Station Square as study case, and extracts design elements after an in-depth investigation of the connotation and historical development of the agricultural landscape and applies them to the greenspace planning and design of Huzhou East Station Square. In the study, Huzhou’s agricultural elements are presented as landscapes to promote the protection of regional agricultural culture and the continuation of traditional farming culture. Simultaneously, this study explores a feasible way for incorporating agricultural elements into landscape presentations. It aims to demonstrate that urban public spaces will increasingly benefit from multi-sensory landscape phenomena and the innovative application of sensory design theory can establish a more effective framework for the landscape presentation method of agricultural elements.

Firstly, this study present the agricultural landscape in public context demonstrate the translation of productive scenes to urban narrative spaces. The “Source-Form-Sensation” mapping model proposed in this study offers a new paradigm for the preservation and revitalization of agricultural heritage within urban transit hubs. Traditional preservation often leans toward static, museum-like isolation (Rössler and Lin, 2018); however, this project demonstrates that through the extraction of “materialized” and “artistic” elements, traditional polder systems can be transformed into narrative urban open spaces. For instance, the design of the “mirror pond - dry spray square - activity square” are not merely a collection of visual symbols but a reconstruction of the emotional connection between modern commuters and Huzhou’s millennial ink and water town culture through spatial circulation. This translation aligns with Lynch’s (1995) theory of city sense (Lynch, 1995), proving that agricultural elements can serve as a critical variable in enhancing the character of high-speed railway stations, thereby reshaping regional identity amidst rapid urbanization.

Furthermore, the integration of “living elements” into high-density urban nodes extends far beyond aesthetics in perspective of multi-sensory restoration and social interaction. Our results indicate that through the Rice-fragrance Garden and interactive farming zones, the landscape provides olfactory (scent of rice) and tactile (harvesting) experiences that transcend the visual. Such multi-sensory stimulation offers significant restorative effects for urban populations under transit stress, aligning with recent empirical studies on healthy landscapes (Kaplan and Stephen, 1989). Furthermore, by translating living elements like “fishermen’s songs” and “Water God temples” into social nodes, the square evolves from a mere transit corridor into a “living stage” for community interaction. This practice of Agricultural Urbanism brings the ritual of agricultural production back to the urban core, enhancing social connectivity and providing a landscape solution to alleviate social isolation in modern cities (Lin et al., 2017).

Although vision plays a dominant role in perceptual experience, hearing is also necessary. High-quality soundscapes can serve as “resources” that may have a positive impact on recovery from physiological stress (Kang et al., 2016) and can be considered an essential component of restorative environments. Introducing natural sounds such as wind, water, and birdsong into the site not only enhances aesthetic enjoyment but may also reduce the perceived loudness of traffic and other human activity noise, thereby improving the quality of the soundscape (Hong et al., 2020), helping travel-tired tourists recover from stress-related mental disorders68. In summary, nature-related audiovisual stimulation often has more health benefits than visual stimulation alone (Deng et al., 2020). When planning the site, planners and landscape designers should pay attention to the impact of “sound” on people, strengthen the support of the environment inside and outside the station for people’s needs, and provide a richer and more satisfying experience in the greenspace of the station square. Besides, the design of tea garden in this study validate the feasibility of tactile experiences in future designed venues where visitors can promote more natural connection and psychological restoration by touching tea leaves or picking other vegetables by hand (Rickard and White, 2021).

While the “Source-Form-Sensation” model is theoretically logical, its implementation faces rigorous challenges in the extreme environment of a high-speed railway station square. Firstly, the seasonal dynamics of agricultural landscapes may lead to a discontinuity in aesthetic experience. This design mitigates this through “artistic elements” (hardscapes and sculptures), and combination of various crop rather than single rice, for example, a crop rotation of “colored rice + colored barley” to ensure year-round ecological stability. Moreover, high-intensity foot traffic demands extreme tolerance from agricultural vegetation (Baldini et al., 2022; Ghahremani et al., 2024). It must be acknowledged that there is a trade-off between maintaining ecosystem services (such as runoff purification) and preserving the urban gateway image. This conflict requires future designs to not only focus on “sensory representation” but also integrate more smart control for refined maintenance (Baldini et al., 2022).

Lastly, the case study of Huzhou East Station Square which has been implemented is not only a tribute to a specific regional heritage but also provides a globally scalable design process for culture-sensitive infrastructure (Figure 12). Our methodology proves that whether in Huzhou’s polder systems, Europe’s vineyard landscapes, or Southeast Asia’s terraced regions, the extraction of “source elements” through rigorous QCA can effectively guide the differentiated design of modern infrastructure. In an era of global landscape homogenization, this agricultural element-based translation logic offers a theoretical path for the transition of global transit hubs from “function-driven” to “cultural-ecological symbiosis”.

Driven by the urgency of preserving agricultural cultural landscapes amidst rapid urbanization, this study proposes a systematic framework for identifying, extracting, and translating regional agricultural elements within a modern urban context—specifically targeting high-density transit hubs. Through a case study of Huzhou East Station Square, this research demonstrates that agricultural elements transcend their traditional productive utility; they can be transformed through landscape design into urban public spaces characterized by distinct regional identity and profound sensory resonance.

Firstly, this study constructs and validates the “Source-Form-Sensation” mapping model. This model successfully decodes abstract agricultural elements (Source) into concrete landscape spatial logic (Form), eventually operationalizing them as multi-dimensional sensory experiences (Sensation). The methodological significance lies in its departure from traditional, static “museum-style” preservation. Instead, it offers a traceable and replicable scientific pathway for the dynamic adaptive reuse of agricultural heritage within modern urban infrastructure.

Secondly, the findings reveal that agricultural landscape elements possess a unique advantage in strengthening the regional characteristics of urban environments. As a representative of highly industrialized and functionalized urban nodes, Huzhou East Station Square—by integrating profound materialized (e.g., polder textures), spiritualized (e.g., water management narratives), living (e.g., interactive farming), and artistic (e.g., calligraphic linearity) elements—significantly enhances regionality and place attachment. This suggests that urban agricultural landscape serves not only as a mechanism for ecological regulation but also as a vital tool for reconstructing urban cultural resilience and social cohesion.

Finally, this research provides practical implications for global cities with similar cultural backgrounds. Amidst the intensifying homogenization of global landscapes, leveraging localized agricultural genes for differentiated design represents a pivotal shift for infrastructure construction—transitioning from purely function-driven projects toward a balance of quality and cultural substance. While this study establishes sensory translation pathways via qualitative methods, it has yet to quantitatively evaluate the actual sensory experiences of users within the square. Subsequent research should utilize biofeedback technologies (e.g., eye-tracking, physiological sensors) and social media big data analytics to explore the long-term mechanisms of such translated spaces in enhancing public mental health and ecological service functions.