Gold Landscape Planning and Garden Design · 2022
Nanhua Glimmer Public Landscape
by Atelier Let's and JR Architects
- A' Design Award 2022 Gold Winner in Landscape Planning and Garden Design
- Awarded April 15, 2022
- CLIENT: Pingtung County Government, Pan Men-an
- Estimated Number of Design Views: 75,635
- Verification code 53FD62D764 · Verify this award
About Nanhua Glimmer Public Landscape
Nanhua Glimmer is a public landscape park in Pingtung, Taiwan. A decommissioned school campus was transformed into an open park for the community and for elderly visitors. The former campus wall was removed, so the new planting and lighting connect with the surrounding streets. Curved concrete retaining walls, finished in terrazzo, echo the patterns of the pineapple fields and the folds of the mountain ridges. A mist facility with fine nozzles waters the plants and recreates the mountain mist. Embedded light strips spread even light at night.
Men-An Pan's Nanhua Glimmer Public Landscape represents a significant contribution to contemporary landscape architecture's exploration of sensory experience and atmospheric design, demonstrating how built environments may cultivate contemplative states through the orchestration of natural phenomena. The work engages traditions of Eastern garden philosophy while employing distinctly modern materials and infrastructural systems, creating a hybrid spatial language that honors heritage while embracing innovation. The sinuous concrete forms suggest the influence of organic modernism, their flowing curves recalling both natural water courses and the gestural quality of calligraphic brushwork, establishing visual rhythms that guide movement and perception through the site. Technical accomplishment manifests in the precise execution of the curved concrete walls, which maintain consistent profiles while negotiating complex serpentine trajectories, and in the integration of misting systems that produce the atmospheric effects central to the design's experiential impact. The chromatic restraint of the hardscape palette allows the verdant vegetation and ephemeral mist to dominate perceptual attention, demonstrating sophisticated understanding of figure-ground relationships at landscape scale. Thematically, the work appears to explore notions of transition and transformation, with the ever-changing mist formations creating a landscape that exists in perpetual becoming rather than static completion. The inclusion of mature trees within the raised planters suggests commitment to ecological continuity and immediate spatial presence, avoiding the sparse quality that characterizes many newly completed landscapes. Mountain views framed through and above the canopy establish dialogue between designed landscape and natural topography, positioning human intervention as complement rather than contrast to environmental context. Visitors encountering this space might contemplate how designed environments can facilitate heightened awareness of atmospheric phenomena that often pass unnoticed in daily experience.
Press Kit
- Unique Properties
- The elements of mist and glimmer resemble the collective memory of the locals – at nights, the mountain mist flows along the ridges, creating radiances around the streetlights afar. The natural mountain mist runs through the mahogany forest and pineapple fields. The recreated misty scene brings up the visual memories of gazing afar towards the mountain covered in mist and clouds.
- Dimensions & Packaging
- Site Area：18,106m2
- Tags
- Nanhua Glimmer, Pingtung, Public, Landscape, Mist, Renovation, Campus, Taimu Mountain
- Production Technology
- The mist generating facility uses the finer spraying nozzles to create a similar texture to mountain mists, irrigating the plants at the same time. The light strips are embedded in the installation, dispersing light evenly across the space. The retaining walls were constructed with traditional materials and the local construction method of terrazzo, providing a sense of familiarity to the audiences.
- Design Challenge
- Key challenges:
1.Removing the former school campus wall. We negotiated and agreed with the client and authority to open the boundary and introduce lighting for the campus and the community.
2.Retaining the mature trees within the campus. We achieved this by carefully planning the facilities and structural foundations considering the tree roots.
3.Creating a space for all. We designed the space with barrier-free passages and eliminated the height difference across the project site.
4.Controlling the mist effects preciously. We investigated the wind direction and the design of the mist generating facilities to create the misty effect as the design intended. - Project Duration
- The project locates at No. 1, Shi 1st Rd., Gaoshu Township, Pingtung County 906001 , Taiwan (R.O.C.).
The project started in September 2020 in Pingtung and finished in December 2021. - Operation Flow
- The decommissioned campus has transformed into the Pingtung AI Agriculture Hub with a landscape park for the community and the elderly. It creates a more inviting atmosphere for the locals by opening up the campus boundary and linking the new greenery and lighting with the surrounding. The selected variety of plants within the campus presents an ecological education opportunity for the public, including the edible plants on the green hills and the restoration of aquatic plants in the eco pond.
- Research
- One of our focuses in this project is to develop an aesthetic and recreational irrigating facility.
In the initial three months of the project, we investigated the wind direction and environmental conditions of the project site. We worked with local suppliers in developing new irrigating facilities that fulfil two purposes – providing sufficient water to the plants and creating a misty scene inspired by the mountain mists. The mist generating facility is integrated with the lighting system to ensure safety at night. - Inspiration
- The reborn campus celebrates the regional nature features and translates them into geometric forms in the landscape design. The continuous curvature of the concrete retaining walls echoes with the patterns of the pineapple fields and the folds of the mountain ridges.
- Image Credits
- Image #1：Photographer Yuchen Chao,Yuchen Chao Photography,2022
Image #2：Photographer Yuchen Chao,Yuchen Chao Photography,2022
Image #3：Photographer Yuchen Chao,Yuchen Chao Photography,2022
Image #4：Photographer Yuchen Chao,Yuchen Chao Photography,2022
Image #5：Photographer Yuchen Chao,Yuchen Chao Photography,2022
Video：JT VFX STUDIO