The International Association of Horticultural Producers (AIPH) has commissioned the multi-award-winning garden design and landscape architecture practice Lotus Design Studio to design and create a ‘Community Garden’ for the AIPH-approved 2018 Taichung World Flora Exposition. The AIPH/COA Community Garden is designed to demonstrate how green spaces can improve the environment, social life and health of urban communities.
The Taichung World Expo will take place from 3 November 2018 – 4 April 2019 and is due to host eight million visitors. The goal of the event is to create a sustainable environment for citizens. ‘Rediscover GNP: Green, Nature and People’ and ‘The Sound of Blooming’ are key themes of the Exposition, conveying ideas of sustainability and harmony between nature and human beings.
The design concept for the AIPH/COA Community Garden is based on a combination of functions: sustainability, ecology, landscape and air quality improvement. Ultimately, the garden aims to demonstrate how green spaces in cities improve the environment, social life and health of urban communities and focuses on what green spaces can do for these communities, most of whom live in apartments without access to their own gardens or outdoor spaces.
The garden will span 660m2 and include seventeen ornamental trees, an orchard, vertical gardens, raised edible planting beds, an eco-friendly natural pond, a green roof, a rain garden, permeable pathways, solar panels, a planted table with an aquaponics system, insect hotels, outdoor gym equipment and native local plants.
Commenting on this ambitious design, AIPH Secretary General Tim Briercliffe said “the many and varied aspects of this garden will combine to create a beautiful and functional installation that demonstrates how to transform urban areas for the benefit of their inhabitants and the environment” adding “it will reflect a new era of sustainability.”
The garden will support the goals of the AIPH Green City concept. AIPH is a leader in global thinking on the successful integration of nature into the built environment. The AIPH Green City initiative promotes the essential role of plants in creating vibrant urban areas in which people and businesses can thrive.
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