Page 136 - PROTAGONIST-123

On these pages, Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay with the Flower
Dome and the Bay’s stunning architecture

with an international competition involving about lectors, release oxygen, change their colors across The program called for the participation of specialized botanists, landscape designers, architects, engineers, and above all scientists and experts on climate change and
170 architects and engineers, organized in teams the seasons, absorb and release heat, and gather
for the occasion. The program called for the partic- rainwater that runs inside the concrete pylons to
ipation of specialized botanists, landscape design- provide irrigation. They are enormous shapes visi-
ers, architects, engineers, and above all scientists ble in the metropolitan skyline, trellises for a wide
and experts on climate change and sustainable en- range of carefully selected plant species. A raised
ergy. The objective: to implement a combined series footbridge, the OCBC Skyway – 128 meters long, at
of environmental strategies to improve micro-cli- a height of 22 – offers panoramic views of the park
mate conditions. The winners were two teams of from above, while connecting the Supertrees. A vis-
British studios: the first, composed of Grant Asso- it to the Gardens is a crescendo of emotions, in an
ciates and WilkinsonEyre, was selected for the Bay almost utopian dimension underscored by the two
South Gardens, with a characteristic ‘orchid’ pro- magnificent and sustainable technological green-
file; the second, helmed by the landscape designers houses designed by the London-based firm Wilkin-
Gustafson Porter, was entrusted with the Bay East sonEyre. The Flower Dome – the lower but wider
Gardens, replicating the forms of tropical foliage. conservatory – reproduces Mediterranean climate
The Bay Central Garden, on the other hand, acts as conditions and those of semi-tropical regions, while
a connection between the first two gardens and the the Cloud Forest, rising higher, contains tropical sustainable energy.
city itself. The outstanding figures of this blend of species and a Cloud Mountain, a 35-meter vertical
greenery and high-tech are the Supertrees, eighteen garden structure covered with epiphytic plants and
dramatic structures of the latest generation, rang- completed by a man-made waterfall.
ing from 25 to 50 meters in height. These ‘trees’ pro- A waking dream in pursuit of lost nature, apply-
duce energy with photovoltaic panels and solar col- ing science and technology by the sea.

134 Architecture Protagonist