Expo Cultural Park Greenhouses
ARCHITECTURE
Delugan Meissl Associated Architects
STRUCTURAL ENGINEERING
Bollinger+Grohmann
LOCATION
Shanghai, China
STATUS
Completed, 2024
The Expo Cultural Park Greenhouse Garden represents a holistic integration of architectural vision with advanced engineering workflows to redefine the landscape of Shanghai’s urban renewal initiatives. Sitting on the site of the previous World Expo 2008 in the heart of Shanghai, Delugan Meissl Associated Architects (DMAA) have designed a series of greenhouses as central to this urban revitalization. Central to this development is the orchestration of three main glazed volumes woven around a pre-existing industrial hall, a challenge adeptly met by the collaborative efforts of an interdisciplinary team. The structural design, engineered by Bollinger+Grohmann, is characterized by its lightweight steel framework, not only supporting the architectural concept but also enhances it, achieving a delicate balance between aesthetic appeal and structural integrity.
The site is divided into four main pavilions, one housing the main entrance hall and the three remaining housing individual greenhouses with specific themes. These geometries of the new pavilions grow organically in between and around the column grid of the existing hall forming a natural and vivid silhouette that respects existing framework by never touching it.
The greenhouse pavilions are designed as lightweight steel framework with circular windows in the roof to maximize the sunlight exposure essential for plant growth.
An elevated pathway acts as a central spine connecting the individual structures navigating future visitors through the various greenhouse experiences.
The pavilions are all connected underground with a basement that mainly houses the technical infrastructure to support the aboveground greenhouses.
Three greenhouse structures Arid Desert, Natural Rainforest, and Cloud Garden share a common structural approach built on reinforced concrete bases with edge beams.
They follow the same design language where organic shapes weaving around the existing industrial hall follow a simple geometric extrusion with an inclined cut at its top. The external façade structure is kept rather slender to maximize transparency and inner voids are used carefully positioned to provide lateral bracing.
All three greenhouses sit on a reinforced concrete base and edge beams, which support the steel façade framing composed of columns and transoms, as well as a roof structure made of steel beams. The roof is additionally supported by either steel cables and rods or by cables suspended from the existing industrial hall.
Measures were taken to ensure maximum structural lightness in the roof maximizing solar gain and thus performance of the greenhouse. The results depicted are for the Tropic Rainforest Greenhouse, since it has the highest façade height of 20m and the largest free span of 30m.
