Zhulongshan Scenic Area Landscape Structures

The landscape structure at the entrance of Zhulong Mountain scenic area in Rizhao is a landmark gateway designed for client Rizhao Fada Group, with parametric design by Zhijian Workshop and Zhou Zhipeng and overall planning by China Construction Design Group's Urban and Landscape Planning Institute. The structure expresses the Chinese landscape tradition of mountain, forest, cloud and water, and guides visitors naturally into the main scenic area. It works through three interlocking visual registers. Approaching from the external road, visitors first see, from far away, a mountain-like form made of 200 vertical point-columns. As they move closer, the transparent overall form flattens out, and the columns reveal point-like elements of different materials on their surfaces, giving a second, planar reading of the mountain. Arriving at the structure, visitors find it is a walkable miniature landscape they can pass through. The columns become a forest; a black-marble river leads the eye toward the real mountains on the horizon; above them, mirror-panel canopies assemble like floating clouds and, together with mirrored surfaces on parts of the columns, reflect the city, the surrounding atmosphere and passing activity into a calm inner space. A perforation system in the mirror panels creates shifting light and shadow that mark the passage of time. At night, thousands of star-like lights shine through holes in the columns, rebuilding yet another luminous mountain range. The gateway is thus a chameleon-like landscape instrument that reads differently from far, mid and near distances, and that transforms again after dark. Project details are limited in the source material.