This is an auspicious cloud painting composed of cloud stairs, cloud clothes, cloud hills, cloud nest, cloud dock, cloud shadows…Stepping into the Shanghai Garden, the ups and downs of its to pography will enrich your experience of garden tour - sometimes from the open air to the forest,sometimes from the flat area to the ups and downs,sometimes from 2D to 3D,both ancient and modern.
As one of the modernest cities in China, Shanghai focuses on seeking harmony among the people, the city and the nature. As a result, the Shanghai-style gardens have been elaborately built,both trendy and inclusive.“Cloud”is the theme of the Shanghai Garden. It has four meanings -“Cloud is always associated with rain.It’s an indispensable stage of the water cycle in nature, nourishing everything on the earth; Cloud is light and high, symbolizing ascension and progress; The Chinese culture believes clouds are auspicious and stand for good luck,showing best wishes; We take“cloud”as the theme,hoping that landscaping and gardening will be as close to the people as the cloud technologies,”explained Lai Hong,the Chief Engineer of the Shanghai Garden.
With the undulating to pography, the Shanghai Garden changed the conventional 2D experience into a 3D garden tour featured with three levels - ground, sky bridge and cliff road,enabling the visitors to appreciate the beauty of gardening at three different elevations and surrounding them with a sea of beautiful flowers.
Among all the clouds in the garden,the crown is the cloud nest at its center.This is a metal architecture, which is both the exhibition center and the visual focus of the entire garden. Its surface is made of aluminum-magnesium alloy.Due to the different densities of the overlapped surface materials, the garden, viewed from different perspectives, shows the dream like effect of flowing clouds.
According to the unique design of the exhibition garden,nine special plant display areas stage a gala of plants, including the area for shade-liking plants such as ferns, the area for irises and calamus, the herb area featured with aromatic plants, the water forest area featured with trees in water and the edible plant area for horticultural fruits and vegetables.
As toother details such as pavings, railings, benches, fixtures and fittings,and the auxiliary display system, the designers also draw inspiration from paintings and use different painting techniques, such asblooming, splashing, spotting, smearing and dry strokes, to express the landscape made of different plants.
Lai Hong said,“During the expo, the entire exhibition garden will use plants which bloom in different seasons to enable the visitors to enjoy the beauty of the plants every month.”
