Text description provided by the architects
We encountered an original landscape by theYanxi Lake in Wuhan City, 20 kilometers away from the city center, whichhappened to be a suburban escape. The government plans to build a lakeside parkhere to serve the residents of the surrounding community. Its base is differentfrom most lake scenery in the city, it is more like an undiscovered secretplace, wild and poetic, secret and elegant. Due to the abundant natural resources andcomplex site conditions, our project team went to the site for exploration manytimes in order to find the most suitable design method for the site, and eachtime they were attracted by a native wetland at the end of the site. Thewetland is connected to the lake, and the edge cannot be seen. The big trees inthe water are even more lonely and tough. The thick branches echo each other,climb upwards, and combine with the lake to form a perfect landscape painting. This scene reminds us of many Impressionist paintings of the late 19th century. Facing this "painting", we hopethat people can enter into the painting and become a part of it while watchingand appreciating it from a distance. So we make the wetland as the center anddivide the site into different spatial experiences according to the currentvertical relationship: gazing and immersion. We hope people can experience thisland from different dimensions. Walking down the platform and strolling on the shore of the wetland, we enter the "painting" unconsciously. Facing the lotus leaves, the forest belts and the continuous wetlands, as the one in the painting, we just want to go in and come out. Being immersed in it and just dazed is the best respect for this land. And everything is naturally filled well. For this landscape, we decided to designwith minimal intervention. When visiting the lake, the inspiration came fromthe lotus leaves in the wetlands. The lotus leaf is light and elegant, and ourthinking extends along the lotus leaf, just like the person in the paintingpicks a few wide lotus leaves and sprinkles them in the lake at will, scatteredinto several floating platforms. It is very comfortable to sit on the platformlightly. But two more lotus leaves need and protect from the sun and rain. Inthis way, the "from the big scene to small" between the lotus leafand the site has become a clue linking the artificial and the natural. Aftersorting out the wetland space, two lotus leaf installations and several groupsof leaf floating platforms are used as the main functional venues, and arelinked by plank roads to preserve the natural features of the site to thegreatest extent. The two groups of "lotus leaves"lie on the lakeside in a natural spatial form, with their openings facing thebest view of the landscape. In order to ensure that the installation processdoes not affect the surrounding natural environment, the device uses a steelstructure as the main frame, which is prefabricated in the factory and thentransported to the site for assembly. The overall finish is spliced with narrowwooden strips, blending into the site with a soft and warm spatial texture. The relationship between the "lotusleaf" and the woods is either open and stretched, or tactfully detoured,forming a rich spatial expression. The "lotus leaf" and the wetlandare mutually scenic, and the boundary forms a frame that can be viewed, justlike the scenic window of the ancient garden, casually but not deliberately. Standing at the best viewing point, feelingthe beauty of nature's brush, so we set up a lookout point here and named it"Studio glazing at the lake". The studio is spread out horizontally,pointing to the center of the lake, establishing a close visual link with thelake. The bottom of the studio is half embedded in the slope, while the topfloats forming a strong spatial contrast. Between the lake and the studio, "fromthe big scene to small room", it seems that all the lakeside scenery canbe put in it at some moment. Walking down the steps to the platforms atdifferent elevations, some hidden in the forest, some above the water, togetherwith the studio, forming a public space for residents to enjoy the sceneryoutdoors. Looking further into the distance, when thepath loses its boundary, when the mottled tree shadows become sparse, andsuddenly the waves of the lake come to the surface, Yanxi Lake suddenly comesout, and the landscape fades... Our low-intervention attempt at Yanxi Lakethis time is inspired by the natural resources on site. Through the extensionof the locality, the details of the environment, the scale of the installationand the creation of a microclimate, people can learn the nature while havingthe greatest respect for the environment. Although the landscape scopedisplayed on the site is only a small part of the overall lakeside green space,we hope that this practice can become a seed that will take root here andspread to the surrounding area, bringing more possibility to the constructionof the overall park by the Yanxi Lake in the future. 5ha