Flowing Gardens

Xi'an International Horticultural Expo 2011

The International Horticultural Expo becomes instigator and core for the redevelopment of a large area between the airport and the ancient city center of Xi’an, known as the home of the Terracotta Army and business centre of the vast Chinese interior. Plasma Studio with collaborators GroundLab won this invited international competition with a radical self-sustainable vision for the future: Flowing Gardens creates a consonant functionality of water, planting, circulation and architecture into one seamless system.

The proposal comprises of a 5000 sqm Exhibition Hall, a 4000 sqm Greenhouse and a 3500 sqm Gate Building sitting in a 37 ha landscape that will house the International Horticultural Expo and a park for Xi’an City as legacy. The Expo will open in 2011, receiving approximately 200,000 visitors a day.

Flowing Gardens unfolds many sinuous paths, creating a network of intermingling circulation, landscape and water. The given topography and its existing slopes were used to draw out the paths in a way similar to how roads ribbon around a mountain, negotiating steepness with gradients. These paths vary in width ranging from main walkways and arteries to towpaths. The patches between these paths become the zones for various planting types and wetland areas, which retain a quality of ease of maintenance.

The three projected buildings, located at the intersections of the major pathways are developed as the nodal articulation and intensification of the landscape.