The collaborative design for the World Horticultural Expo 2014 Theme Pavilion with UNStudio and !melk consists of the Main Expo Hall, a Performance Hall, Conference Centre, and a Media Centre. The design focuses on the relationship between Science and Nature. Whilst scientific achievement serves as an inspiration, the design communicates the essential generative and structural principles of nature through architectural gesture.The buildings become gently absorbed in the landscape, whilst maintaining their individual identities. These roofs are envisioned as elevated landscaped plateaus, each addressing a different portion of the Masterplan with its inclination and terracing, providing panoramic views which extend far into the surrounding landscape.Our team’s landscape design strategy is based on our awareness that the site is located in the Center of the Expo and thus is to be treated as the “heart” of the Expo-experience. Here we have designed a spectacular and colorful mosaic integrated in the paving of this main gathering space, which is also composed of seven elements: seven red chinese roses. It is here where the seven themes of the overall Master Plan of Qingdao’s Horticulture Expo unite, brought together on site in a poetic and concentrated form, displaying what the entire Expo represents.The seven themes are showcased in the landscape design on and around the buildings in materials that represent these elements using domestic vegetation to create seven experiences. Firstly we selected local vegetation to make seven palettes of botanic material to compose the open spaces. Secondly, in order to provide framework to the open spaces between the buildings, we designed seven landscape-”patterns”, each representing the core essence of the seven themes, inspired by microscopic or molecular geometries. Our patterns are not only ‘graphics’, but are fully composed landscapes including elements that are integrated, functional and educational at the same time.With Architects UNStudio, Arup Amsterdam, Arup Hong Kong, Methanoia (visualizations).
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