West Garden Florist by LUO studio

Origin: Emerging Demands in Urban Green Spaces

Located in Haidian Park, Beijing, the project sits within one of the district’s major urban green spaces, a setting where nearby residents gather for everyday leisure, exercise, and encounters with nature. As urban public parks evolve toward more open, inclusive, and human-centered environments, small service buildings within these settings are taking on a broader role beyond functional amenities, increasingly becoming spatial mediators that connect people with nature.

The project is situated beside the park’s central lawn, nestled amid a dense grove of trees. In recent years, the lawn has become one of the park’s most vibrant public spaces, drawing visitors for camping, kite flying, ball games, and other outdoor activities. Nearby, the newly opened “Monet Garden” has also become a popular destination. As visitor numbers continue to rise, the site called for a modest facility offering refreshments, flowers, and brief moments of rest. This is where the project’s story begins.

Working with Nature

The project is located at the intersection of three park pathways, where different routes through the landscape converge. It needed to be easily accessible while avoiding a disruptive presence within the woodland. Here, “nature” is not only the context of the project, but also the underlying logic guiding the entire design and construction process.

The site occupies a relatively open area within an existing grove, surrounded by trees at varying distances. Rather than being regarded as obstacles to avoid or remove, these existing trees directly informed the building’s boundary. The building footprint follows the gaps between trees, forming an irregular polygonal plan. Its geometry was not predetermined, but instead emerged from the relationship between the trees, paths, and movement through the site.

Spatial Formation

The design begins with the need for moments of pause within the park. A generous roof overhang extends around the building, with a continuous, open seating edge beneath the eaves. The flower shop thus becomes more than an enclosed retail interior; it also serves as a sheltered public veranda within the woodland, becoming part of the everyday rhythms of the park.

At the same time, the building should avoid obstructing the surrounding landscape. People come to the park to be close to trees, light, and scenery, so the space has to remain open and permeable—allowing greenery, light, and movement to remain continuous rather than being interrupted by the building.

Shelter and openness define the project’s fundamental spatial logic. From this interplay emerges the building’s distinctive structure: a ring of dense yet slender columns extends outward to support the expansive eaves, while folding inward and interweaving to form the canopy above. The resulting form resembles a giant mushroom within the woodland, creating a sheltered realm where visitors experience a subtle shift in scale beneath its expansive canopy.

Lightweight Construction

Lightweight construction was a key starting point for the project. Through previous works such as the Pergola in Luotuowan Village, the Zheshui Natural Library, and the Yuntai Ice Chrysanthemum Display Shelves, the design team has continuously explored ways of crafting space through lightweight components, developing a coherent approach to design and construction.

In this project, lightweight construction was not merely a formal choice, but also a response to the realities of the site. The park’s existing paths are primarily intended for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles, limiting access for large construction machinery and heavy hoisting operations. Extensive use of heavy materials would not only complicate transportation and on-site installation, but also risk damaging existing paths and disrupting the park’s everyday public use.

In response to the site, the project adopts lightweight construction and renewable materials as an intentional strategy. Thin timber slats of standard dimensions—readily available on the market—are spaced apart and gathered into bundled units to form standardized columns. Each column bends outward to form the roof eaves, while extending inward and interweaving to form a softly curved canopy.

The gaps between the thin slats soften the visual weight of the columns. Rather than appearing as a solid, monolithic volume, the structure becomes a spatial framework woven from slender linear elements. Light, sight lines, and tree shadows permeate the structure, allowing the building to gently settle into the woodland with a light and open presence.

Structural Details

The integration of furniture and structure—an approach the design team has long embraced—continues in this project. The bundled columns are fastened with horizontal threaded rods. Based on the dimensional relationship between the rods and timber slats, custom thin metal shelves are fitted between columns, serving as display platforms for flowers and plants. These elements are therefore not separate additions after construction, but grow naturally from the structural system itself.

Circular skylights are evenly embedded within the interwoven timber canopy. Daylight filters through these openings like dappled sunlight slipping through a tree canopy, imbuing the otherwise uniform interior with a subtle, continuously shifting play of light and shadow.

Return Green Space to Nature

While the building occupies a small area within the natural landscape, it seeks to return green space to nature in another form. The roof is designed as a continuous planted surface, offsetting the footprint of the building while providing necessary thermal insulation for the interior.

Considering Beijing’s relatively short growing season, the rooftop planting prioritizes cold-resistant, drought-tolerant species suited to northern climates—minimizing maintenance demands and extending the seasonal presence of the rooftop landscape. Even from late autumn to early spring, when many herbaceous plants struggle to thrive, the rooftop vegetation maintains consistent visual interest. As the plants gradually grow, the planted roof begins to echo the vegetated ground beneath the trees, helping the “mushroom” settle more naturally into its surroundings.

WEST GARDEN FLORIST does not attempt to assert a strong architectural presence within the grove. Instead, its structure and form gradually emerge from the gaps between the trees, the rhythms of human movement and pause, the scale of the materials, and the practical conditions of construction. Beyond a flower shop, it is also a sheltered veranda, a generous canopy, and an open resting space within the park’s woodland. Like a giant mushroom growing naturally from the woods, its lightweight timber framework supports a planted roof, offering passers-by an open and gentle shelter.

Project Information
Project Name: WEST GARDEN FLORIST
Design Team: LUO studio
Designers: Luo Yujie,Wang Beilei , Hong Lun
Client: Beijing West Garden Culture Co., Ltd.
Contractor: Shangmuzao (Beijing) Architectural Technology Co., Ltd.
Location: Haidian Park, Haidian District, Beijing, China
Floor Area: 84 m²
Photographers: Jin Weiqi, Zhu Yumeng
Design Date: September 2024
Completion Date: April 2025
Video: https://youtu.be/vSsz4v1vhFA