Gold Landscape Planning and Garden Design · 2022
Times Mansion Residential Exhibition Area
- A' Design Award 2022 Gold Winner in Landscape Planning and Garden Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Guangzhou S.P.I Design Co., LTD
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 75,040
- Verification code 960D54A318 · Verify this award
About Times Mansion Residential Exhibition Area
Times Mansion is a landscape design for a residential exhibition area in Nanjing. The total area is 8400 square meters, and the landscape design area is 6000 square meters. Existing goldenrain trees and camphor trees were preserved. The space layout and circulation routes were placed away from the trees. A raised waterscape surrounds the goldenrain trees and forms tree holes. Independent foundations and a steel frame structure were built at a safe distance from the roots. The frame is covered with embossed steel plate, paved with waterscape stones and edged with mirrored stainless steel.
Hu Sun's Times Mansion Residential Exhibition Area stands as a distinguished contribution to contemporary landscape architecture, demonstrating how the ancient traditions of contemplative garden design might be reinterpreted through modern materials and spatial sensibilities. The work engages with multiple design lineages simultaneously, evoking the meandering water gardens of classical traditions while employing the clean geometric vocabulary of modernist architecture, creating a dialogue between organic and constructed forms that feels both inevitable and surprising. The designer demonstrates exceptional command of material juxtaposition, setting pristine white concrete against the infinite variations of living green, allowing each to amplify the qualities of the other through contrast. The curvilinear pathway system suggests influence from the stroll garden tradition, where movement through space reveals sequential views and contemplative moments, yet the aerial perspective from which this documentation captures the design reveals an additional layer of compositional intelligence, the garden functioning equally as sculpture when viewed from above. The crescent viewing platform emerging over the dark water creates a moment of particular spatial poetry, offering inhabitants the experience of hovering between realms while remaining safely grounded. Plant material selection reveals sophisticated understanding of textural and chromatic layering, from the architectural mass of the large canopy tree to the precise geometry of clipped hedging to the soft informality of groundcover plantings. The work invites consideration of how gardens mediate between human desire for order and nature's tendency toward organic complexity, suggesting that the most resonant landscapes are those that honor both impulses simultaneously. What memories of water, shade, and sheltered spaces does this composition awaken in you?
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- When designers first arrived at the site, they were enchanted by the goldenrain tree and camphor preserved there. They planned to reconstruct the site on the basis of preserving the original ecology. The overall design, such as space layout and flow line, kept away from the original trees; highlighted their values and gave them new lives. They strived to intervene in the site in a "humble" way and adapt to local conditions. They used trees to create a forest theater under the urban reinforced concrete.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- The total area is 8400 square meters, and the landscape design area is 6000 square meters.
- Tags
- site reconstruction, symbiotic design, original ecology, waterscape, forest theater
- Production Technology
- The most important thing was to preserve the original trees on the site. After communicating with plant designers and structural designers, several independent foundations were finally determined to be built in limit distance without damaging the root system, and a steel frame structure should be used. A layer of steel embossing plate was put on the steel frame and then paved with waterscape stones on, enclosed decorated with mirrored black titanium stainless steel plate.
- Design Challenge
- The design that used the same design system in different sites without distinction is not rare on the market. However, designers hope to talk with the site in a humble way and get involved in it. How to keep the original goldenrain tree and camphor on the site and give them new lives was what we thought about. The space layout and flow line totally kept away from the original trees.
- Project Duration
- The project started in Dec. 2020 and completed in April 2021 in Nanjing.
- Operation Flow
- Designers carefully thought about the elevation, and used the raised waterscape to embrace the original goldenrain trees to form tree holes, and the structural system kept away from the root system at utmost, and the entire water surface was supported by an overhead structure, which protected the original tree species from being destroyed.
- Research
- Designers hoped to talk with the site in a humble way and get involved in it. They kept original trees on the site to give them new lives. They tried to communicate with them in the forest theater.
- Inspiration
- Site reconstruction is not only the inheritance and redevelopment of humanistic spirit and nature, but also the respect for the site. As a design strategy, it is permeated with the humanized care for users. It shows the unique spirit of the site, and reveals its essence. Designers hoped to present the spirit thoroughly; therefore, they began to think about how to respect nature, find appropriate ways and suitable materials so as to develop a strong relationship between human, the site and nature.
- Image Credits
- Image#1: Photographer Yi Ren, Times Mansion, 2021.
Image#2: Photographer Yi Ren, Times Mansion, 2021.
Image#3: Photographer Yi Ren, Times Mansion, 2021.
Image#4: Photographer Yi Ren, Times Mansion, 2021.
Image#5: Photographer Yi Ren, Times Mansion, 2021.
Colors of Times Mansion Residential Exhibition Area
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