Location
Border Restricted Area, Futian Mangrove Ecological Park, Shenzhen, China
Size
6 ha
Project Team
Turenscape Guangzhou (LA)
Mangrove Conservation Foundation (Maintenance)
Project Year
2019 – 2020
Phase
Maintenance and Ecological Monitoring
Key Tensions
Meet the landscape designer – Mr. Qingxi Lu
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Moving Soil to the Park: The Case of the International Botanical Congress 2017 Memorial Garden at the Shenzhen-Hong Kong Border
The Memorial Garden of the 19th International Botanical Congress (IBC 2017) is located at the junction of the Shenzhen River and the Xinzhou River estuaries in the Futian District of Shenzhen City. This land, spanning approximately 5 hectares, is adjacent to the Futian Mangrove National Nature Reserve and faces the Mai Po Ramsar Wetland in Hong Kong across the river. The surrounding ecological environment includes the river estuary, tidal flats, mangroves, and land. In order to commemorate the 19th International Botanical Congress held in Shenzhen in July 2017, this land, which used to be a construction waste landfill, was transformed into a special memorial garden starting from 2019.
The “special” aspect stems from its design concept: not planting a single tree, grass, or flower. Instead, 1,545 cubic meters of soil were relocated from other parts of Shenzhen, allowing plants to randomly grow from the soil by themselves. Why did the landscape designer choose such a design? What difficulties were encountered during the project implementation process? And what plants eventually grew there?
