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Future City Garden : Nature and City | UN Convention on Biological Diversity Read text
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Laurie Chetwood was invited to design a new urban plaza – Future City Garden – for the United Nations Biological Diversity Convention (Cop15), hosted recently by the city of Kunming, China. The 3,000 m2 plaza was located outside the main entrance to the convention hall to welcome arriving delegates.

The project will remain in situ in Kunming as an educational template to demonstrate how more productive and beneficial pastoral spaces can be incorporated into urban design.

Chetwoods Future City Garden : Nature and City

Future City Garden explores how urban spaces can be adapted to encapsulate Cop15’s ideals, incorporating the ancient Chinese philosophy of “unity of man with nature”. The design  combines architectural and landscape design forms with environmental protection features to create an urban plaza that conveys Cop15’s central theme of “co-building a global ecological civilization and protecting global biodiversity”.

At the centre of the plaza a representation of the Sun is powered by a hydrogen fuel cell to highlight the vital role of green hydrogen in enabling the world to transition its energy towards net zero ambitions. Other areas of the design are themed around the role of a more pastoral approach to urban design in protecting biodiversity and improving human survival and wellbeing.

Chetwoods Future City Garden : Nature and CityAir, water, food, shelter and rest – the five basic conditions for survival – are explored through a series of urban gardens featuring urban food production, shelter, air quality, water management and natural and human wellbeing.

The Food Garden uses herb walls and growing shelves to demonstrate the importance of food production and the need for cities to shorten supply chains by growing food on vertical and horizontal surfaces. It proceeds through a series of urban allotments into a more rural setting featuring orchards and mixed-use hedges which cater for birds, insects, bees and butterflies.

The Sleep Garden is a quiet space in which visitors are encouraged to leave the city behind and lose themselves in nature. The garden entrance is characterised by a number of large mirrors configured in a way that produces multiple reflections and gives a sense of the city’s chaos. As visitors pass these mirrors, they move into a series of quiet, private spaces at the heart of which is a secluded woodland area.

The Shelter Garden provides shelter for all: from humans to insects and microorganisms. Shelter is both vertical and horizontal, in the form of a translucent canopy and a series of shelves, boxes and ledges.

Chetwoods Future City Garden : Nature and City

The Air Garden aims to demonstrate the benefits of flora in reducing air pollution as well as introducing visitors to the sensory benefits of air itself as they become aware of the sounds and movement of the wind through trees and grasses. The plantings include conifers – as pollution ‘eaters’ – and aromatic shrubs and flowers, heightening the intensity of smell which visitors can experience. This garden combines the restorative and enhancing powers of nature; it also features three helical wind turbines to emphasise the benefits of sustainable energy generation to the planet.

The Water Garden focuses on rainwater harvesting as a means of addressing water scarcity. It demonstrates the potential to use existing water resources more effectively, and the health and wellbeing benefits of water.

The Sun showcases an innovative form of clean and efficient energy: a hydrogen fuel cell. Epitomising the source of all life and energy, the hydrogen fuel cell is enhanced by photovoltaic panels which make up the sun’s surface, powering irrigation, lighting and communication throughout the garden.

Chetwoods Future City Garden : Nature and City

Laurie Chetwood said, ‘It was a great privilege to be asked to contribute the centrepiece for the COP 15 UN Biodiversity Conference. Our Future City Garden reflects the ever-present influence of nature in architecture and design and serves to demonstrate our concern – as architects – for the natural environment.

‘Chetwoods has created a number of other concept gardens in China in recent years. We pride ourselves on being bold and brave and on using design to stimulate both thoughts and actions. Design doesn’t just exist to create landscapes or buildings but to convey messages and change mind-sets. Addressing the important issue of biodiversity and the role it has in all our lives – not least in the context of food security – was a challenge we were pleased to take up.

‘While Future City Garden has a serious point to make, it’s also fun. I hope that people will enjoy visiting the installation, remember its messages and be motivated by them, thereby enriching future decisions on this extremely important global topic.’

Laurie Chetwood has been working in China for over 10-years on an array of different projects from show gardens in Shanghai through to a proposed 20-hectare logistics park in Wuhan and a new urban wellbeing settlement in Ruichang. He has always found his work within China to be exhilarating and rewarding. China has always shown a passion towards embracing new and ambitious ideas, which is a philosophy that Laurie Chetwood shares.

To find out more about Chetwoods’ work in China, please click here Chetwoods China Brochure

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