The Poetry of Black, White and Gray——Bamboo Garden

Location: Almond Bay, Xiamen, Fujian

Client: Xiamen Landscape Architecture Bureau

Area: 1500m2

Design: 2006-2007

Completion: 2007

Award: Xiamen Garden Expo Young Landscape Architect Creativity Award

2006 International Garden Expo Park Master Plan embodies our understanding on contemporary city, contemporary landscape architecture and their relationship. In planning process, we also have many ideas on exhibition gardens and set aside a Designers’ Gardens area intended to show the newest ideas in garden design. When we get the invitation to design one plot of the Designers’ Gardens, we think it is an opportunity for us to present public our understanding on contemporary garden art.

The garden is conceived as a Bamboo Garden. It is expected not only to be a contemporary garden with the spirit of Chinese traditional garden, but also be in line with the modern aesthetic.

With two walls intercrossing, one white zigzag wall and the other gray curved-straight stone wall, the garden has a unique boundary, both clear and blurred, linking the inside and the outside together. The two walls divided the garden into a frontcourt and a main court, and the latter is composed of many small interconnected spaces of different scales, shapes and forms. This is the typical spatial structure of traditional Chinese garden. The central reflecting pool, green bamboo, white and gray walls, bring Bamboo Garden a strong Chinese style and sense of Chinese brush drawing. The unpredictable spatial changes make the garden with deep poetic.

Bamboo Garden reflects a modern interpretation and understanding to Chinese traditional garden. Its formal language has not any direct relations with Chinese traditional gardens; however, it has brought people the similar experience in terms of visual and spatial changes. The bamboo garden embodies the designer’s deep thinking on Chinese traditional garden and dedicated pursuits to modern aesthetic.

There are altogether 8 designers’ gardens in the Expo Park. During and after the Expo, these gardens got a lot of attention and discussion, and especially to our Bamboo Garden, which actually arouse a wide range of thinking on garden art in public and designers.