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Architects: ppas, tf Architecture Office
- Year: 2016
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Photographs:SHEN-PHOTO
Text description provided by the architects. According to an ambitious plan, the Jinshan Modern Agricultural Park, located on the southwestern outskirts of Shanghai, is being transformed into a suburban park with composite functions. Enhancement of the public space in the core area of the park is the pilot project for initiating this transformation. In the conception of design, the veranda, an essential element in traditional Chinese gardening, has been selected as the theme of the design. In the park, a veranda extending in the east–west direction links up several isolated agricultural tourism projects on the north side of the freeway.
This veranda will be expanded farther westward and will pass through the eastern landscape mound to be integrated with other tourism projects towards the south via a pedestrian bridge. The landscape mound on the south side of the veranda will isolate the park from the noise and sight of the freeway, and the freeway-facing side of the park, together with the veranda, will form an extended earthscape, thereby ensuring high identifiability along the freeway line.
Replacing the expensive and complex wooden structure of a traditional veranda, a simple, white concrete structure will not only harmonise the agricultural environment and the surrounding modern facilities but will also effectively ensure that the project costs less than 80 euros/square metre, in accordance with the financial restrictions of the project. The overall folded planar structrue provides sufficient activity space in various eastern and western areas of the project.
In particular, the courtyard enclosed by the central veranda and the sightseeing pavilions has become a rest stop for the visitors and a centre for tourist activity in the core area. Combined with the landscapes in various areas, the alternative guiding openings on the walls at each side of the veranda allow the scenery to change with each step. Similar to the traditional high-platform architecture, the bottom platform endows the veranda and surroundings with subtle height changes and powerful styling characteristics.
