Flowing Gardens

Xi'an International Horticultural Expo 2011

Landscape
The project proposes a hybrid of both natural and artificial systems, brought together as a synergy of waterscapes. With consideration to the amount of water required for irrigation, the project seeks to introduce various technologies and designs found in nature, but it is enhanced to meet the specific needs of the new population. Rainwater is collected and channeled into the wetland areas, where natural plants and reed beds clean and store the water, which is then later dispersed and used for irrigation. These integrated wetlands and ponds are also to be enjoyed by the visitors as oasis and points of personal tranquility.
More complex water cycle issues are sensitively controlled with the introduction of grey and black water treatment systems.

The proposal aims to make use of the initial investment and organisation during the exhibition, to set up an environment, which becomes autonomous in function and character. The gardens transform the artificial and natural conditions of the site into a sustainable system that becomes increasingly more maintenance-free once the exhibition is over, allowing the park to develop into a new model, or paradigm, within the horticultural industry. The park area manifests in a variety of scales in association with very specific planting, surfacing and lighting, thus providing a sandbox of experiences that ranges from the very intimate with semi-enclosed, shaded, self contained, one- to-one spaces, to the very public with communal plazas formed by wider pedestrian paths with full exposure to the sun and a direct, uninterrupted visual link to the main hiatus on the site.

in collaboration with GroundLab