The Green Donuts Park | 3GATTI

Enterprise Park for the Wuhan 2015 Garden Expo Wuhan / China / 2015

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The Green Donuts Park
Enterprise Park for the Wuhan 2015 Garden Expo


The aim of this park design is to make people experience nature as never before in an intense journey through the best feature of wild and artificial natural environments, showing the best qualities of full sustainable architecture immersed in a detailed selection of plants creating the most savagest landscape.


This concept is developed creating two main environments clearly separated by two main heights:
- the ground level, placed in the flat existing site level
- the pedestrian path level placed on an artificial quote that goes from a minimum of 3 meters to a maximum of 9.5 meters height reaching the park entrance level


The ground level will be the “wild environment” with a random and somewhere intricate and dense plantation of many species of trees and vegetation from the wildest areas of China.
This level is accessible by pedestrians but the paths are limited and with not defined and flat paving so to make the approach to this area’s most difficult, especially in the locations where the vegetation is denser. The aim of this environment is to create with its amazing variety of species, colors and water ponds, a beautiful “picture postcard” to be viewed from the high pedestrian path level.
This wild vegetation will be planted using sustainable techniques such as the “rain garden” or “storm water planter” using concave sections of ground to collect the rain water and reuse it to irrigate the park vegetation.


The pedestrian path level is a wooden smooth ramp that connects with bridges artificial “donuts” of ground and circumnavigate its crests to give the visitors the best view point to enjoy the external landscape and the pavilions contained inside the “donuts” itself.
Each “donut” eight change along the site so to connect smoothly the ground level to the entrance level placed 9.5 meters over the site flat ground.


The entrance will be a circular plaza placed one step under the garden expo main path for bikes and pedestrians. From this plaza a bridge will make the visitor walk to the first donut crest. Besides the bridge will be visible the vineyard along the entrance street artificial hill. On the donut crest the visitor will be able to continue along the two sides of the crest to the next bridge or to enter inside the donut.


Inside the first donut will be visible the water roof of the classic winery pavilion containing circular courtyards with trees coming outside. Walking along the inner ramp will be possible to reach the entrance bridge over the water donut bottom, here will be visible the pavilion structure made of a heavy concrete pool slab apparently sustained by tenuous clusters of bamboo. This bamboo dense forest will divide all the interior spaces of the winery creating a filter for the sun light and for eyesight into the private VIP French classic style rooms. From inside the pavilion the view will be directed to the smooth sides of the grass donut hill and the natural light will be able to pass through the main façade and the courtyard openings giving the best natural feeling to the visitors who will finally avoid the view of the grey surroundings and grey sky inevitable in most of the Wuhan seasons.


Over the second bridge will be visible the next inner donut roof made of a dense grid of steel wires supporting climbing greenery that will filter the sunlight before reaching the underground pavilion windows and letting the bamboo plants grow from the donut bottom in between the steel grid cells. Walking along the crest the path will smoothly go under the grid level and reach the underground interior made of rammed earth walls and rammed earth floor covered with transparent resin; this will give the feeling of a space directly excavated inside the ground soil. Here the main window will watch to the donut interior bamboo courtyard and a small gap window will let the light come from the south exterior side of the donut.


The next bridge passing over a lake will reach the thatch pavilion, where very sharp cuts shaped an edgy volume out of a brushy layer of natural thatch. This volume will be located as a treehouse in the middle of a small forest inside the donut reachable with a bridge passing through the plants.


The next pavilion, thanks to its height, will be the only landmark visible from the main street over the project site. This cylindrical volume will be built with the common Chinese bamboo scaffolding technique creating a dense cubature with in the middle a glass room from where people will enjoy the privileged view from the middle of the nest.


Over the bamboo pavilion the wooden path will pass through a small empty donut before reaching the timber theatre pavilion lying on the ridge of the only open donut of the site to facilitate people adventuring into the wild area of the park. The exterior of this pavilion will function as an amphitheater for events and show and as seating area serving the underground fast food building. The elevations of the amphitheater steps will also function as windows to let the light reach the underneath service area that will include a fast food with kitchen, a lounge area, a medical clinic, toilets, an info point, a guard area and storage spaces.


Next donut pavilion will be placed inside a spherical space composed by the donut ridges in the bottom part and by a structural bamboo dome in the high part; rattan nests will hang from this dome connected by timber bridges and a ladder that will reach the bottom level of the donut where will be placed a playground for children.


A long foot bridge will connect the bamboo dome donut to the future pavilion donut, a large donut covered by intricate intersections of foot bridges. In the middle of those intersections a triangular shape aluminum pavilion will be placed floating on top of the donut bottom. The pavilion skin will be composed by honeycomb structural aluminum panels cut with triangular holed deep windows that will give directional views from the interior to the best corners of the tree forest growing under the foot bridges donut roof. The roof of this pavilion will be used as an event triangular plaza where to showcase new futuristic products placed on top of the shiny aluminum floor.


The last donut will be empty and very low, mainly used as a transition from the future pavilion to the ground level where the visitor will find a junction of raw paths going through the wildest areas of the ground level landscape and finally connect to the residential area walkways.


 


 


THE GREEN DONUTS CREDITS:

Programme: Garden Expo park, 7 architectural pavilions, 3 playgrounds, winery, exhibition areas, green areas.

Architecture firm: 3GATTI
Chief architect: Francesco Gatti
Project manager: Valentina Brunetti
Collaborators: Wang Lin, Gregorio Chierici, Wang Xiyue, YingLing Kong, Lim Paoyee, Mate Mesmat, Qi Chang, Yang Xue, Yang Junpeng

Client:  Wuhan Hankoli Culture & Innovation Ltd.


Local design institute: WISDRI engineering & research incorporation Limited


Contractor: China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Co.,Ltd

Location:  Garden Expo area, Wuhan

Total area: 6 ha Landscape,  8000 m2 Architecture 

Design period:  March-July 2014


Construction period: September 2014 – June 2015


Materials: Bamboo, rammed earth, thatch, rattan, timber, steel, reinforced concrete, glass

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    The Green Donuts Park Enterprise Park for the Wuhan 2015 Garden Expo The aim of this park design is to make people experience nature as never before in an intense journey through the best feature of wild and artificial natural environments, showing the best qualities of full sustainable architecture immersed in a detailed selection of plants creating the most savagest landscape. This concept is developed creating two main environments clearly separated by two main heights: - the ground...

    Project details
    • Year 2015
    • Work started in 2014
    • Work finished in 2015
    • Status Current works
    • Type Parks, Public Gardens / Public Squares / Urban Furniture / Bridges and Roads / Urban development plans / Landscape/territorial planning / Business Centers / Theme Parks, Zoos / Conference Centres / Pavilions / Exhibition Design / Bars/Cafés / Restaurants / Leisure Centres / Exhibitions /Installations / Urban Renewal / Bridges and Walkways / Cycle Paths / Strategic Urban Plans / Art studios/workshops
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