Gardens by the Bay Master Plan (Second Part)

The Fall view

The work was not just done on the facade of the greenhouses, inside the Cloud Forest one can find big green developments one of this is Waterfall, in which the main concept is Mountain Kinabalu and on the way one can have a pleasant experience, at the beginning one can learn about environmental problems, habitat loss and statistics about the Earth inside The Earth Check; continuing with the Mountain experience one can enjoy the different views along a small bridge that sorrounds it known as the TreeTop Walk; some stalactites and stalagmites are developed in the interior to have a more complete experience at Crystal Mountain, almost at the end of our journey one can find plants that only exist in The Cavern; Cloud Walk is the closest place where one can find plants that only grow on the mountain sides and will find insects and plants that live 2000 m above the sea level at The Lost World, besides being the highest point inside the CLoud forest one can enjoy the most beautiful views of the greenhouse.

 And by the end of the journey one can find The Secret Garden below the ground level, where there is a large diversity of plants coming from the most alternative places imaginable, from Chile to Australia.

The Cloud Forest´s Sketch

Photograph by eyesthruthelens on flickr

The development of The Supertree Grove shows us how complex it can be to try to imitate nature, following the basic elements that a natural tree posesses, The Supertree Grove is made of three parts: The concrete core reinforcement that upholds the vertical structure, The Truck that is the steel frame connected to the concrete core Reinforcement to support the tree´s skin, the planting panels that will be responsible for the growth of living skin and the canopy that is responsible for the branched shape, it is assembled to the rest of the Supertree Grove. With a total of 18 elements, these  can measure between 25 and 50 mts in height, this represents between 9 and 16 floors of a building, this measurements provide scale and dimension according to the gardens sorrounding them and keep the balance with the highest buildings inside Marina Bay; 11 of these manage to integrate sustainable elements like photovoltaic cells to collect sun light.

The Supertree Grove

Photograph by Jian Wei Poon

The Supertree Grove 

The Dragonfly and Kingfisher lake are the main key for the biodiversity balance that exists around it , as it was designed to integrate functions for a live ecosystem, conducting water filtration functions from the gardens as well as creating aquatic ecosystems that assist in filtering the water in the lakes which is later used in the Marina reservoir. Throughout its 440 mts of boardwalk by the lake one can discover the largest landscapes that arise along the horizon.

The Dragonfly and Kingfisher Lake

Photograph by monikafebliani on blogger

Gardens by The Bay is definitely an architectural example of an ecosystem and the fragility that exists when the human being tries to transform it, raising awareness of the value of the plants for the proper functioning of the ecosystem and manifesting the vital importance of water  as well as the quality of the later. Not only does Singapur invest in their environmental culture but also invests in the environmental education with which they guarantee a cleaner  and more responsible future.

White Hat Architecture suggests reading Gardens by the Bay Master Plan (First Part) to learn more about  the rest of the project.

Follow us on Twitter @WH_Architecture

Gardens by the Bay Master Plan (First Part)

White Hat Architecture believes that taking into account the architecture and philosophy into the direccion of the use and  knowledge of materials, a confined relationship between the  sketch and the client is established, starting since the first stages of the project.

Master Plan View

This is how the firm Wilkinson Eyre Architects is incorporated into the development for Marina Bay´s master plan and shows us their concern about sustainable development, taking as a platform for development the creation of a green complex where we are shown how to take advantage of environmental resources and the style to design unusual spaces, transforming the vegetation into something more atractive for the architecture. Taking advantage of the Project; the culture built by Singapur around the sustentability, horticulture and artistic garden;  it is shown to the World what Singapore´s people maintain as a living style, culture and society inside this complex,even the deepest corners where we can explore an environment similar to that in a mediterranean place or changing to a more tropical place.

Gardens by the Bay Map View

The Project has four elements to distinguish: The flower Dome, The Cloud Forest, Supertree Grove, The Dragonfly and Kingfisher Lake. The first two  architectonic elements are the most striking and complex that one can see, where most of the environmental reserve was developed and which had more architectonic attention for its development. Considered as the biggest Greenhouses without columns in the world, the architectonic elements Flower Dome and Cloud Forest achieve the majority of the catchment of freshwater and sunlight that subsequently can be reused and transformed into energy, given that the main characteristic they have is to keep a humid and warm weather for the growth of the diferents plants that are kept in the interior.

Gardens by the Bay Sky View

The Flower Dome and Cloud Forest design required the use of more than 16 000m2 of glass, which was  split in a repetitive pattern to facilitate its maintenance as well as to take advantage of sunlight, wrapped in a steel net that acts like an eggshell, moreover there exists a sail roll installed in the steel structures that are sensitive to sunlight, these activate in the sunnier days to generate shadow reducing by 65% the incident of sunlight, avoiding the greenhouse effect.

Flower Dome 

White Hat Architecture suggests reading Gardens by the Bay Master Plan (Second Part) to learn more about The Flower Dome and the rest of the project.

Follow us on Twitter @WH_Architecture

Flower Dome image source: www.jacquelineong.com