Shenzhen south garden green cloud to build garden roof

Nanyuan Lvyun, the Nanyuan Green Cloud Roof Co-built Garden, is a 450-square-metre rooftop community garden on a six-storey apartment building in an urban village in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, designed by 11+ Architecture (Luo Minggang, Lin Pengbo, Zeng Yisi) for the Shenzhen and Nanshan Urban Management bureaux. It was one of the 2021 Nanshan Co-built Gardens initiated by the Shenzhen Green Foundation, Shekou Community Foundation and The Nature Conservancy, but unlike the others, which sit at street level, it occupies a separated roof that promises an oasis of slowed time yet makes spontaneous community gathering difficult. The initial budget allowed only a small garden under 150 square metres, and the hot Shenzhen sun meant shaded structures were needed, which were hard to permit. The project's innovation is to multiply roof greening (low-carbon) with co-built gardening (community-building): five partners—Sino-Ocean Group providing the rooftop and safety railing, the Nanshan Urban Management bureau funding coatings and the pergola frame, the Shenzhen Solar Energy Society designing and installing a grid-connected solar canopy, US Boeing contributing the south farm, and 11+ Architecture itself covering a funding gap—produced a 450-square-metre garden with a shaded activity plaza, flower beds and farm. The canopy's 2.7-metre module is determined by two standard solar panels; fifteen units form a 6.5-metre main pergola carrying a net bed, a 6.3-metre long table and a wooden yoga platform, while a larger 3.0-metre lighthouse pergola of four panels glows at night as a visible beacon. Because the design uses repeatable modules, the pergola was re-scaled during a charrette with residents, and a 1:20 model workshop let twenty-four young neighbours design their own furniture. Flower beds and farm use 708 repurposed plastic logistics boxes, stacked three high, capped with wooden lids as seats, painted a custom green to avoid warehouse associations. Planting uses small-leaved, wind-swaying species and geometric signage. Community operations include rentable one-square-metre plots of four boxes, seasonal vegetable growing and hotpot parties hosted by Boeing, hourly rental of the 3-metre table and yoga deck for twenty-to-thirty-person events, monthly youth activities organised by the Nanshan Youth League, and future solar-education workshops. The project is an experimental urban room that tests whether a public rooftop in a dense city can be a walkable, sociable, self-financing LOHAS space.