Press Release
Bronze A' Design Award in Landscape Planning and Garden Design Goes to Timscape Indoor Landscape by Xinpeng Liu
Xinpeng Liu recognized for landscape planning and garden design by the international grand jury of the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
COMO, Italy, April 16, 2026 /DesignNewswire/ A' Design Award & Competition has confirmed the Bronze A' Design Award in the Landscape Planning and Garden Design category for Timscape Indoor Landscape by Xinpeng Liu, designed for Tim Hortons. The award was conferred within the 2025 - 2026 A' Design Award & Competition and was determined through blind peer review by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members, who evaluated anonymized entries against predetermined criteria.
What the Bronze A' Design Award Means
The Bronze A' Design Award is given to outstanding designs that showcase a high degree of creativity and practicality. It recognizes the dedication and skill of designers who produce work that stands out for its thoughtful development and innovative use of materials and technology. These designs are acknowledged for their professional execution and potential to influence industry standards positively. Winning this award highlights the designer's ability to blend form and function effectively, offering solutions that enhance people's lives and wellbeing.
Regarding Timscape Indoor Landscape
This project creates a near zero energy smart vertical garden for Tims Cafe in the underground first floor of Beijing's Jewelry Mall. Reinterpreting classical Chinese garden philosophy with a green core and walkable rainforest landscapes, it integrates intelligent irrigation, full spectrum LED grow lights and rooftop photovoltaics for energy self sufficiency and closed loop water recycling. The 236 square meter space combines ecological materials, therapeutic planting and digital operations, building a sustainable commercial interior landscape model reconnecting urban dwellers with nature.
About Xinpeng Liu
我是刘欣鹏，出生于中国南洋市。我致力于景观设计超过十年，打造与环境和谐的户外空间。我认为现代城市通过混凝土和钢铁使人类与自然疏远，作为景观设计师，我应该帮助人们重新连接自然世界。我的工作重点是打造绿色圣地，让城市居民能够在城市生活的混乱中呼吸、反思和找到平静。
Award Record
With this recognition, Xinpeng Liu is a winner of 1 A' Design Award.
About the A' Landscape Planning and Garden Design Award
The A' Landscape Design Award is an international landscape design competition recognizing good landscape designs by leading architects and designers worldwide. It is organized within the A' Design Award & Competition and is open to landscape designers, urban planners, garden designers and municipalities from all countries. Typical entries include landscape designs, public parks, residential gardens, urban plazas, campus designs and green roofs. The awarded landscape designs are published at https://dezigners.org/design-category/landscape-design
About A' Design Award & Competition
Organized annually since 2008, A' Design Award & Competition is an international, juried design accolade. The competition is open to entries from all countries. The philanthropic mission of the A' Design Award is to advance society through good design, by recognizing and promoting superior products, projects and services that benefit society, and by creating a global awareness and appreciation for good design practices and principles. Nominations are peer reviewed and evaluated anonymously by an international grand jury panel of established academics, design professionals and press members against predetermined criteria such as functionality, ergonomics, engineering, presentation, innovation, usability, sustainability and technology, with score normalization applied to remove biases. Awards are conferred at Platinum, Gold, Silver, Bronze and Iron levels. Eligible laureates receive the A' Design Prize, which includes the award trophy, the certificate of design excellence, the hardcover yearbook, a lifetime license to use the A' Design Award winner logo, exhibition of awarded works, an invitation to the gala night and award ceremony in Italy, inclusion in the World Design Rankings and Designer Rankings, and public relations and publicity services. Registration, uploading a work and receiving a preliminary score are free of charge, and Professional and Digital Edition laureates are not contractually obliged to pay further fees to claim the A' Design Prize. More information is available at https://competition.adesignaward.com
Press Resources
- Winner Page: https://dezigners.org/182975
- A' Design Award Page: https://competition.adesignaward.com/182975
- Media Showcase: https://www.designnewsroom.com/!182975
- Laureate Profile: https://dezigners.org/d/381203
Media Contact
Giulia Ferrari, Press Office
Designers.Org
Via Leone Leoni 32, 22100 Como, Italy
press@designers.org
+39 031 4491953
###
Fact Sheet
The Work
- Project
- Timscape Indoor Landscape
- Function
- Indoor Landscape
- Category
- Landscape Planning and Garden Design
- Discipline
- Spatial Design
- Industry
- Architecture and Sustainability
- Colors
- Black, Dark Olive Green, Dark Slate Gray and Dim Gray
- Images
- 5
- Client
- Tim Hortons
The Recognition
- Laureate
- Xinpeng Liu
- Country
- China
- Recognition
- Bronze A' Design Award
- Edition
- 2025 - 2026
- Design ID
- #182975
Design Details
- Unique Properties
- This near-zero-energy smart vertical garden for Tims Cafe in Beijing's underground commercial area merges classical Chinese garden philosophy with modern low-carbon technology. Its four strengths include creating a walkable, viewable green core that integrates coffee service and social spaces, breaking rigid underground commercial design. An intelligent irrigation system and full-spectrum LED lights simulate a rainforest microclimate for tropical plants. Photovoltaic power and closed-loop water circulation enable near-zero-energy operation using recyclable materials.
- Inspiration
- This project reconnects humans with nature within a 236-square-meter underground commercial space in Beijing, addressing the loss of urban green areas caused by high-density development. Located in the basement of Beijing International Jewelry Trading Center, the site lacks natural daylight, ventilation, and vertical height. Inspired by classical Chinese garden design principles, particularly the Lion Grove Garden, the concept creates a walkable, viewable, and inhabitable green core that integrates coffee service, social interaction, and nature education. Traditional elements are refined into minimalist modern architecture, breaking conventional commercial layouts to reduce enclosure.
- Research
- This research is a practical design and environmental study focused on indoor landscape and underground commercial spaces. Its goal is to solve the lack of nature in dense cities, improve underground space experience, and create a healthy, low maintenance and sustainable green area. We used on site investigation, user behavior observation and plant growth testing. Tools included environment measuring devices and long term monitoring of light, ventilation and plant conditions. Participants included commercial space visitors, daily users and later stage management staff.
- Challenge
- The greatest challenge was creating a viable, sustainable vertical garden in a fully enclosed underground space with no natural daylight, poor ventilation and limited vertical height-overcoming these inherent physical constraints while balancing cultural expression, commercial functionality and ecological sustainability. Externally, technical hurdles included simulating a stable growing environment for tropical/subtropical plants in Beijing's climate, developing a self-sufficient near-zero energy system for landscape operations, and achieving closed-loop water circulation to meet green building standards.
- Realization and Technology
- The design was crafted via a synergistic methodology blending classical Chinese garden design principles with modern sustainable landscape and digital technologies. Core techniques included extracting traditional garden spatial logic, layered layout, dynamic circulation, and nature human integration, to restructure the enclosed underground space into a landscape centered green core with composite functions. Ecologically, carbon sequestering, minimally processed natural wood was adopted for structural frameworks, enabling circular resource utilization.
- Operation and Interaction
- This indoor garden space works in a simple and intuitive way for daily use. Visitors can walk through and experience the green environment freely, just like being in a natural garden. The whole system runs automatically without complex operation. The intelligent lighting and watering devices adjust themselves based on the actual needs of plants, providing stable light and water at proper times. Clean energy is used to power the whole landscape system, and water is recycled to reduce waste. Different plants are arranged to create a comfortable and refreshing atmosphere.
- Project Duration and Location
- Design commenced in December 2022, and the project was completed in Beijing in August 2024.
- Specifications
- Design area 236 square meters
- Keywords
- Sustainable design, Classical Chinese garden, Vertical Greening, Rainforest Landscape, Composite Commercial Space, Smart Garden
