BEIJING HORTICULTURAL EXPO

Designer: SCAPE Landscape Arquitecture

Position: Designer

Client: City of Beijing

Location: Beijing

Year: 2019

Collaborator: WORK Architecture Company, SLAB Architecture, Studio Pei Zhu

SCAPE’s design proposal for the Beijing International Horticultural Expo takes a systems-based, site-specific approach to expo-planning, creating a long-term regenerative strategy for the Gui River region in southern China. Rather than treating the site as tabula rasa, our proposal integrates current patterns of use to both host an International Horticultural Expo and enhance post-expo ecologies, social connectivity, and land conservation. The site’s existing wetlands, agricultural cycles, and circulation patterns are magnified and developed through a phased implementation of water treatment systems, multimodal transportation routes, and renewable energy production.

 After the expo, some elements of this ecological infrastructure are absorbed into the site, while other elements are expanded to restore and revitalize the regional ecology overtime. Designed to counter the tendency for expo sites to be abandoned after the event, the Beijing International Horticultural Expo leverages the expo as an opportunity to create an upward spiral of ecological growth. This landscape master plan was a finalist for the 2019 Beijing International Horticultural Expo.