To carry out the requirement of "planning and constructing the world-class urban highlight blocks" proposed by the 13th Party Congress of Wuhan Municipality, the scientificity and advancement of highlight block projects, e.g. "axis of the city" shall be improved to the greatest extent possible so as to spare no efforts to attract international high-level institutions and masters and absorb new concepts and methods of international planning and preparation, and with the consent of Wuhan Municipal Government, we have formally started the bidding for alliance planning in May and have received the applications of 66 well-known institutions of planning & design and consulting & planning from 10 countries on four continents. The international planning & design alliance of Wuhan consisting of 25 overseas institutions and 25 domestic institutions is finalized after strict qualification examination and expert review.

To ensure the first-class international standard of members of the alliance, the following requirements have been stipulated since the inception of the alliance, i.e. in principle, the institutions at home and abroad shall have the top level of professional technology and the power of the industry, have won the international and national design awards and have the experience in undertaking the similar major planning projects. Through an integrated evaluation on seven major factors of applicants, i.e. power of the industry, benchmarking achievements, enterprise reputation, team quality, successful cases, international awards and commercial offer, the target of building the planning alliance, characterized by the integration of various disciplines, including planning, construction, traffic, municipal works, ecology, landscape, structure and consulting, etc., and the world's leading level of comprehensive design, is finally realized.

In the eligible institutions, including the world-class institution like Gensler (Gensler Architecture; the world's largest design firm), SASAKI (SASAKI Design; the designer of Disneyland Paris and the Olympic Green) and Foster+Partners (winner of the Pritzker Architecture Prize), etc., Foster+Partners and the domestic industry leaders like China Academy of Urban Planning & Design, Shanghai Tongji Urban Planning &Design Institute and Changjiang Institute of Survey, Planning and Research, etc., a first-class international platform of comprehensive design is formed.