The Wave

The Wave is a recyclable temporary exhibition garden at the 2020 Shenzhen Bougainvillea Flower Show in Bao'an, covering 300 square meters. The studio began from a critical reflection: while flower shows are valuable, they generate enormous waste because most construction materials are discarded after a single use. The design therefore reconsidered the garden's life cycle and promoted sustainable exhibition practice, delivering a prefabricated, disassemblable, and reusable modular system so that 90 percent of materials could be rebuilt on another site after the show. The wave-shaped modules are inspired by Shenzhen's identity as a global ocean city; tilting and combining modules at different angles creates undulating terrain that simulates the motion of rolling waves. The team treats the plants as the protagonists and the wave as the stage on which they surf. Outside the wave, on the coast, a cool palette with warm accents and seasonal flowers together with bougainvillea creates a romantic shoreline, while broad-leaved bird-of-paradise plants form a lush tropical background. Inside, low flowers in the wave planters graduate from white through light blue to deep blue, simulating rolling surf, and branched, upright, berry-bearing succulents with colorful foliage resemble coral reefs. Beyond the wave terrain, a fish-net veil and a wave pavilion interact with visitors: the soft veil lets them brush against or look through it, while the pavilion rolls up from the wave with planting on its roof and mirrors below that reflect different views depending on position. Inverted planters serve as benches under the pavilion. Construction took one month, and the 335 prefabricated aluminum box modules adapted well to the tight schedule, with only local welding at the veil columns and pavilion cantilevers; the remaining 90 percent was assembled, leaving more time for planting and preparation. After the exhibition, the garden was disassembled and rebuilt in another Bao'an park.