The Beijing Horticultural Expo Masterplan integrates landscape, architecture, and ecological systems across multiple scales of time, space, and experience. Developed in collaboration with the “Superfriends” team of WORKac, Studio Zhu-Pei, SLAB and SCAPE, the masterplan lays out a 960-hectare venue for China’s 2019 International Horticultural Expo. Countering the tendency for expo sites to be abandoned after the event, the masterplan conceives the site with a long-term strategy for post-expo regenerative use.

The core area of the Expo uses a grid to frame 13 bio-zones, which organize the numerous national gardens according to their climate zones and ecological diversity. Six pavilions and a tower punctuate the site along the main axis. The secondary circulation route, a covered walkway, creates an explorative loop around the site, connecting the pavilions into a narrative of ecological variety, sustainability and conservation.

Integrated into the Expo experience, a sustainable water treatment system collects, filters and returns water from the polluted Gui River. It serves as model for how China can rethink the relationship between its water and cities.