The International Horticultural Expo in Xian, China opened on 28th April. The Garden of 10,000 bridges by West 8 is complete along with many other display gardens.
Gardens are telling stories; they are poetry and have a narrative. Our garden represents the human life, the path of people’s lifetime. This path is a path of uncertainty and burden. Many bridges over troubled water. The garden design takes this path of life as a meandering, winding road – continuous and like a labyrinth. The path through nature takes you over 10000 bridges.
For the 2011 Xi’an International Horticulture Exhibition, West 8 designed a Master Landscape Architect Garden, that plays with the limits and the sensation of surprise.
The International Horticulture Exhibition 2011 has many gardens designed by world renowned landscape architects such as Terragram, Martha Schwartz, SLA, Topotek1, Catherine Mosbach, Plasma Studio, GROSS.MAX, EMBT Miralles/Tagliabue, and Atelier DYJG. Also a 9000 square metre garden has been designed by various landscape architecture programs from across the world that were exhibited in July this year at the Creative Nature Exhibition in Qingpu, Shanghai. With many other gardens designed by city and provinces along with some enterprise gardens. The 2011 Xi’an International Horticulture Exhibition will be held from 28 April to 8 October 2011.
4月28日，西安世界园艺博览会之West 8“万桥园”正式对游人开放。
每座园林都有一个故事。它们是诗，在诉说。
我们的园林讲述的是生命的故事，人的生命之路。
这条路跌宕起伏，忍辱负重，
讲述了忧愁河上的众桥。
在这座园林中，生命是一条绵延不绝的蜿蜒小路，更恍如一座迷宫。
这条小路深入茫茫自然，带你去渡万座桥。
2011年西安世界园艺博览会, West 8设计了大师展园中的一座。这座园林模糊了感官上的界限，带给游人惊奇的游园体验。
2011年西安世界园艺博览会将于4月28日至10月22日在中国西安市举行。
Images Courtesy of West8
West 8 Partnered with DYJG Beijing for this project.
THE GARDEN OF 10000 BRIDGES
Gardens are telling stories; they are poetry and have a narrative.
Our garden represents the human life, the path of people’s lifetime.
This path is a path of uncertainty and burden.
Many bridges over troubled water.
The garden design takes this path of life as a meandering, winding road – continuous and like a labyrinth.
The path through nature takes you over 10000 bridges.
“The Garden of 10000 Bridges” plays with perspective views, limits and the sensation of surprise. The integration of views to the surrounding parts of the exhibitions takes advantage of the perfect position of our
plot towards the lake and main features of the park. The concept is very simple and strong. There is only one entrance and one exit of the path which goes through the garden. The narrow path is curling through the garden of bamboo and passing over and under each bridge in the meanwhile. The visitor is not able to see at which point of the garden he is located and how much of its way he has finished. In these moments the visitor is limited to himself, possibly the person in front of him and the sounds of the moving bamboo.
The situation changes dramatically at the 5 bridges. The visitor climbs up the steep bridges to reach the top that sticks out from the dense vegetation. Each bridge allows another spectacular view. The bridges are situated to fit perfectly into the optimalrelationship to the viewpoints that are defined by the surrounding.
BRIDGE
The inspiration from the rich history has been transformed into a contemporary language and will be built with the modern techniques.
It is possible to realize the 5 bridges with 3 moulds. There are all together 3 types of bridges. Each bridge,consisting of two halves, will be mounted in place. The surface can be adapted by rubber-inlays that createa unique décor on each of them. The inner surface is smooth and only contains the handrails. The entireoutside structure is decorated with the imprinted decor of bamboo. We are proposing to the pattern bambooleaves, which is related to Chinese traditional painting. The bridge will be painted in red with Epoxy.
The 5 prefabricated, modular concrete bridges will require less material than cast-in-place ones, for a lower initial cost. The proposed off-site fabrication will ensure tight adherence to specs, less on-site work, and
quality control of modular units. Installation is fast, compared to cast-in-place construction. In the context of an Expo of this size this will clearly work in the advantage of the total realization. Precast concrete
eliminates the costly maintenance of exposed bridge decks and bridge deck icing. Prefabricated bridge components ensure a long life cycle and low life cycle costs, requiring virtually no maintenance. With limited
costs it will be possible to create the sensation of realizing 5 unique elements.
PLANTING
As we were looking for the optimal plant to be the base for our garden we have defined the main characteristics that we were looking for:
•resistant and strong to stand the pressure of the Expo
•attractive and green throughout all the seasons to make the garden work along the whole year
•available as plants of 2 meters height on the market to be able to plant the entire surface densely and to be
ready at the moment of the opening
•dense growth character to avoid that visitors can look through the green structure
•attractive fresh green from the bottom up to the height of 2 meters
•related to the Chinese garden tradition and the local vegetation
•appropriate to the local climate
Bamboo seemed to be the most appropriate choice for the vegetation of the garden. It fits into all the above mentioned criteria. It would be necessary to search for the right subspecies in order to avoid maintenance
problems and to avoid that the bamboo grows too high or is not dense enough at the bottom of the plant.
PATH
The paths should be consisting of a fine broken black granite (gravel) that gives you the perception of being
in a garden. The paths are only 80cm wide and on both sides enclosed by a softly rounded curbstone of
dark granite. It is very important for the concept to emphasize the change of scale from the main path with a
width of 7 meters to the scale of a garden.
万桥园 THE GARDEN OF 10000 BRIDGES
每座园林都有一个故事。它们是诗，在诉说。 我们的园林讲述的是生命的故事，人的生命之路。 这条路跌宕起伏，忍辱负重，
讲述了忧愁河上的众桥。 在这座园林中，生命是一条绵延不绝的蜿蜒小路，更恍如一座迷宫。
这条小路深入茫茫自然，带你去渡万座桥。
“万桥园”试图效仿自然山水带给人的视觉、尺度和心理上的冲击力。借助我们地块邻湖且较为中心的地理优势，吸引参观者的将不仅仅是园林本身，还包括世园会的山水美景。设计的概念非常简单有力：桥、小径和竹子。
一条单方向的砾石小径只设一个入口和一个出口，贯穿全园。狭窄的小径象征着生命，如古希腊神话中的名 匠Daedalus设计的迷宫，曲折盘徊，带领参观者远离宽敞的大道和人群，深入茂密幽深的竹林，经过每座桥
的桥上和桥下。参观者深处园中，不知自己所处为何，也无法看见前路还有多远。“只在此山中，云深不知处”。唯一可以清楚把握的，仅仅是此时此地的自己。或许还可以隐约听见，透过竹丛传来，在其他小径上探索前路的隐隐人声。“空山不见人，但闻人语响”。两句唐诗，很好地概括了中国人的自然观，也概括了我们想通过万桥园展现给参观者的自然。
所有的迷局和不解在五座彩虹般的拱桥上得到了解答。当参观者沿着狭窄陡峭的楼梯艰难的登上桥顶，一目了然的不仅仅是已远在脚下的竹林，周围雕梁画栋精彩绝伦的园林，世园会的山山水水已尽在眼底。每座桥都是参观者的必经之路。它们的位置经过精心选择，如桂林的山峰层层叠叠，也和世园会的总体布局相呼应，使参观者站在每座桥上都能得到不同的视角和景观体验。
桥
对比中国源远的造桥史，同样是拱桥，万桥园的拱桥将采用现代的混凝土浇筑技术技术。
五座桥共分高中低三种类型，一高三中一低。为控制成本，所有的桥都由混凝土模具在工厂筑造完成。每座桥都是由完全相同的两个半弧混凝土模件现场拼接组装而成，合在一起就构成了桥的拱桥造型。桥的内表面保持光滑，仅留有扶手方便参观者攀爬。外部结构以混凝土翻模竹叶印花装饰。
这五座预制筑模混凝土桥将比现浇混凝土节约材料和成本。异地工业化制造可以严格控制质量，简化现场施工中的不确定因素。由此带来的好处是安装简单迅速，一般只需要几天。比较于以往几周甚至几个月的现场浇筑工作，将大大节省施工时间。对如此大规模的博览会来说，这一方式将确保工程如期完成。浇筑混凝土方案还有效的避免了桥面损毁和桥面结冰的保养费用。预制的桥体确保了桥的使用寿命，降低了维修成本，平时基本不需要任何维护工作。正是在这一简化成本和施工的设计策略下，我们才能够提供给参观者多达五座，连绵不断的的视觉惊喜。
在设计中，我们尝试了各种不同的模板纹理。最终我们选择了竹叶的投影图案。它取材于自然母题，也是中国水墨画最常见的题材之一。模板嵌入混凝土浆表面后，在混凝土尚未完全凝固时取出，形成的纹理受混凝土湿度影响变形，在似与不似间达到丰富而非单一的肌理。
在桥的模块成型后，我们将以手工给混凝土内外表面，特别是外部纹理涂以红色环氧树脂。中国红是最佳的选择。由于纹理凹凸不一，岁月和环境将进一步雕蚀这些纹理，使桥随着时间的演进呈现出愈来愈美的状态。
植被
在寻找适合植物的过程中，我们发现以下几点尤为重要：
•中国传统庭院植物，且西安本地也有栽培
•强壮且可以承受世园会的人流压力
•常绿植物，使园林可以终年吸引游人
•色彩为鲜绿色，高度约为2米余
•生长茂密，避免游客偏离小径，或因过于稀薄造成视线穿越
•可以从苗圃中购得高大的植株，以便在世园会开幕时达到设计概念要求的空间效果
竹是目前最适合此园的植物。它满足以上提到的所有条件。具体的品种选择应根据西安当地的经验。
小径
园中小径由英式庭院中常见的黑色花岗岩砾石铺成。这种材料利用了石矿的废料，排水性能良好，与周围的环境融合一致。小径宽约80厘米，和7米宽的游客大道形成对比。由大道拐入小径，仿佛突然脱离城市的喧嚣，置身自然之中。小径两边砌有略高于地面的暗灰色花岗岩侧石。侧石内侧抹圆角，植被和土层都略高于小径，使参观者更容易获得感官尺度上的对比。
