Expo Cultural Park Greenhouse Garden Shanghai, Modern East China building, Chinese commercial images

Expo Cultural Park Greenhouse Garden in Shanghai

29 July 2024

Architects: DMAA

Location: Shanghai, China

Images © DMAA

Expo Cultural Park Greenhouse Garden, China

As part of the project for the Expo Cultural Park in Shanghai, DMAA won a competition for the realisation of a series of greenhouses that are being built on the city’s former Expo site.

The decision of the city authorities to transform such a large, centrally located reserve of land into a high quality recreational zone offers clear proof of the global trend towards the more intensive greening of core urban areas. One of the conditions of the competition was the retention of a former factory building that is used, in DMAA’s proposal, as a distribution zone for the complex, which contains greenhouses with a range of different vegetations and climates, a visitors’ centre and numerous restaurants and other spaces for relaxation with a total usable area of 41,000sqm.

The principle of dual energies that is set out in the Chinese philosophy of “Yin and Yang” was the starting point for the architectural approach. This establishes a dialogue between the modular and linear structure of the existing factory hall and the sculptural articulation of the individual, organic, 15-to-22-metre high greenhouses, which are woven into this existing structure, and whose roofs are perforated with a series of largecircular openings.

The design, which was conceived to meet the exacting ecological requirements of a zero-energy building, is also reflected in the gentle and
harmonic insertion of the complex into the surrounding landscape park.

The large area of water surrounding the greenhouses not only provides cooling in the hot summer months, but is also home to a photovoltaic plant that is located just a few centimetres below the surface of the water and, together with additional panels on the roof of the existing
factory building, supplies the energy required to control the various climatic areas. The energy concept, which was developed together with Thomas Auer, Managing Director of Transsolar Energietechnik, is based on the decision to glaze the greenhouses

with a single layer of glass in order to minimise the filtering of the daylight. The generous openings in the roofs of the pavilions also ensure that the plants receive enough daylight.

The spatially orchestrated vegetation scenarios lead visitors from the ravines and sand dunes of the desert pavilion, via the swamps and waterfalls of the tropical rainforest and the terraced landscapes of the so-called cloud garden, to the opulent blossoming of the towers of flowers. The tour is completed by the opportunity to visit the terrace on the roof of the existing factory building, from where visitors can take in the entire park and, beyond this, the built edge of the surrounding city.

Expo Cultural Park Greenhouse Garden in Shanghai, China – Building Information

Architecture: DMAA – https://www.dmaa.at/
Address: Shanghai Expo Cultural Park – Guo Zhan Lu Pudong Xinqu, Shanghai
Competition: 2018 (1st Price)
Start Of Planning: 03/2019
Start Of Construction: 01/2020
Completion: 06/2022
Gross Surface Area: 41.000 sqm
Construction Volume: 340.000 sqm
Site Area: 47.000 sqm
(Within The Whole Park)
Height: 35 M
Number Of Levels: 3

Number Of Basements: 1
Costs: € 300 Mio.
Project Manager: Diogo Teixeira
Project Team: Yue Chen, Jurgis Gecys, Thomas Peter-hindelang, Toms Kampars, Prima Mathawabhan, Sebastian Michalski, Ernesto Mulch, Maximilian Tronnier, Toni Nachev, Marillies Wed

Consultants Coordination: Yiju Ding
Executive Planning: Siadr Co.ltd
Structural Engineering: Bollinger + Grohmann Zt Gmbh
Energy Design: Transsolar Energietechnik Gmbh
Landscape Design: Yiju Ding