World Building of the Year 2012 : Cooled Conservatories at the Gardens by the Bay, Singapore.

Singapore’s new icon, Gardens by the Bay, is one of the biggest gardens of its kind in the world. This project is an integral part of the Singapore government’s vision of ‘City in a Garden’. Spanning 101 hectares (250 acres), this super park is located in the Marina Bay. The park consists of three waterfront gardens: Bay South Garden, Bay East Garden and Bay Central Garden. This horticultural attraction boasts over 250 thousand rare plants. The project was announced in August 2005, by the Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong during the National Day Rally and the first phase of the project was opened to the public on June 29, 2012.

Bay South Garden, the biggest of all three gardens, was designed by a team comprising of Grant Associates(Landscape Architects), Wilkinson Eyre (Architects), Atelier One(Structural Engineers), Atelier Ten(Environmental Design Engineers), Land Design Studio(Museum, Exhibition and Vision Center Designers) and Thomas Matthews(Communication Designers).

Bay South Garden features the giant Supertrees designed by the Grant Associates. Supertrees are the uniquely designed tree shaped 16 storey vertical gardens that function as rain water collector, solar power generator and cooler for the conservatories. A suspended walkway between two of the supertrees, the OCBC skyway, provides visitors a chance to enjoy the aerial view of the gardens. There are about 18 Supertrees in the garden.

         Illuminated Supertrees. Photo source : Flickr: Gardens by the Bay  Author : tee_eric Picture downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.

The other prominent feature of the Bay South Garden is the two Cooled Conservatories designed by the Wilkinson Eyre Architects.The Flower Dome (3.16 acres) accomodates the plants and flowers from the Mediterranean regions and the Cloud Forest Dome (1.80 acres) displays plants and flowers from the Tropical Montane (Cloud Forest) environments and provide an all-weather education space for the visitors. These conservatories are cooled by the ventilation strategy developed in the supertrees of the garden. The conservatories complex has bagged the World Building of the Year 2012 award at the World Architecture Festival held in Singapore in October.

Cooled Conservatories : The Cloud Forest (left) and Flower Dome.  Photo source : Flickr: DSC_3179 (2)  Author : DChai21 Picture downloaded from Wikimedia Commons.

The two sets of horticultural themed gardens in the Bay South Garden are an important part of the Garden's edutainment programme, which aims to bring plant knowledge to the public.The Heritage Garden highlights the culture of the ethnic groups of Singapore and the important role that plants play in their respective cultures, as well as the country's colonial history. The other set "Plants and Planet" showcase the biodiversity of plant life on the planet.

While the interim developed Bay East Garden's future developments will be based on the theme of water, the Bay Central Garden will act as a link between the South Bay and the East Bay Gardens.