Nanning Garden Expo Park

Nanning Garden Expo Park

The 12th China (Nanning) International Garden Expo Park is located in the Dingshi Mountain area, approximately 12 kilometers southeast of downtown Nanning. It borders Puxing Avenue to the east, Longgang Avenue to the west, Zhonglong Road to the south, and the urban expressway Yudong Avenue to the north. The total research area covers about 658 hectares, including 276 hectares for the main garden expo park. The planned site features typical Lingnan hilly terrain, currently consisting of 18 hills, 8 terraced farmlands, 16 abandoned quarries, multiple water bodies such as the Nazun River in the north, Qingshui Spring in the middle, and mining pits in the south, as well as small-scale villages. The overall topography is richly varied, with undulating hills, winding rivers, and lush vegetation. It not only offers superior conditions for landscaping with mountains, water, forests, springs, and lakes, but also includes a nationally protected cultural heritage site — a typical freshwater shell mound from an inland river basin.

Creating Three Distinctive Garden Expos

An ecological garden expo, achieved mainly through ecological conservation, quarry restoration, and sponge city planning. Guided by low-impact development concepts such as “not leveling mountains, not filling lakes, and preserving existing vegetation,” the design preserves and organizes the natural landscape, maintaining 43.4% of the original natural mountain-water features while avoiding large-scale excavation and filling.

A cultural garden expo, showcasing the cultural characteristics of Guangxi, Nanning, Southeast Asia, and countries along the Belt and Road through local architecture, ethnic customs, traditional activities, regional plants, and heritage culture. Six premium botanical theme gardens are highlights, realizing the vision of “visiting the garden expo in Nanning in winter.”

A shared garden expo, emphasizing urban-rural, national, and international sharing to enhance the expo’s connectivity and broaden the platform for showcasing garden culture. Urban-rural sharing is reflected in the rural scenery zone, where villages are preserved and renovated to allow villagers to enjoy gardens and urban residents to reconnect with rural life. National sharing is showcased in the China Garden, blending traditional Chinese garden essence with modern urban landscape elements, where innovative landscaping achievements from across the country are displayed and exchanged. International sharing is represented by the ASEAN Garden, highlighting the distinctive cultures of the ten ASEAN nations. Additionally, this expo invites key cities along the Belt and Road and international sister cities to co-build the garden expo park and share in its celebration.

Planning Layout of “Three Lakes, Six Bridges, Eighteen Hills”

Based on the natural landscape and terrain, the master planning team divided the water bodies into three major lake areas. From north to south: Linglong Lake formed by organizing the Nazun River and aquaculture ponds in the north; Qingshui Lake created by utilizing the low-lying land around the Qingshui Spring Plant in the middle; and Qicai Lake developed by rehabilitating the mining pits in the south. Spanning the three lake areas, six uniquely designed bridges are set up: three vehicle bridges — Hibiscus Bridge, Golden Flower Bridge, and Diecui Bridge — and three pedestrian bridges — Zhizhu Bridge, Gule Bridge, and Jinxiu Bridge.

The “Eighteen Hills” retain the existing 18 hills and, through ecological restoration and landscaping techniques, form three major hill landscape corridors: Yong, Dragon, and Emerald.

Constructing “One Pavilion, Four Museums, Two Centers”

The park will feature multiple structures centered around “One Pavilion, Four Museums, Two Centers”: Qingshui Pavilion, Livable·City Museum, ASEAN Friendship Museum, Experience Museum, Dingshi Mountain Shell Mound Site Museum, as well as the Visitor Service Center and Performance Center.

Qingshui Pavilion: Located on the north side of Qingshui Lake in the garden expo park, facing the Sai Ge Stage to the southeast across the lake, the pavilion reaches a maximum height of 75 meters at its roof, with nine floors above ground, making it the tallest structure in the entire park. Its architectural prototype is inspired by the Dong people’s drum tower. Viewed from different angles, the building takes on varying forms — resembling a drum tower, a flag, or even the initial letter “N” of Nanning. The observation deck offers a distant view of the city’s Longxiang Pagoda. Climbing to the top provides a close-up panorama of the entire garden and a distant vista of Nanning’s skyline — a breathtaking sight.

Livable·City Museum: As the main exhibition hall of this garden expo, the Livable·City Museum adopts the design strategy of “embedding into the mountain, integrating with the earth, combining building and garden, and merging with nature.” With a construction area of approximately 25,900 m², it will host the first-ever urban development-themed exhibition during the expo. Titled “New Era · New Concepts · New Cities,” the exhibition follows the timeline of urban development — past, present, and future — and is organized around five themes: “Innovative Development, Coordinated Development, Green Development, Open Development, and Shared Development.” It offers visitors a fresh visual experience, engaging interactions, and professional technological exhibits to showcase the charm of urban development in China’s new era.

ASEAN Friendship Museum: Built as a garden and landscaping exhibition platform for the ten ASEAN nations, the museum’s architecture is inspired by the wind-and-rain bridges of Guangxi’s Dong people, with a total floor area of about 6,700 m². Designed around the theme of “bridge,” it forms a distinctive cluster of waterside buildings arranged in a “hand-in-hand” formation, symbolizing unity and connection. The bridge houses 10 national exhibition halls covering a total area of 3,300 m². Each country’s pavilion is a relatively independent unit ensuring the integrity of its display, yet connected to others. In line with the architectural concept, the interior exhibition design centers on the theme “The Blooming of Flowers,” symbolizing the blossoming friendship between China and ASEAN. Using a montage style and the narrative thread “Creation is alive and beautiful,” it presents dances themed around each country’s national flower, transforming the ASEAN Friendship Museum into a “garden exhibition with stories.” The exhibition content ensures fairness and equity based on the unique garden characteristics of each ASEAN nation, facilitating international exchange from a landscaping perspective. The ten ASEAN countries featured, in alphabetical order, are: Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.

Experience Museum: Themed around the traditional Dougong (bracket arm) structure of Guangxi dwellings, the museum extracts this structural style and integrates it into a modern exhibition space. Aimed primarily at youth, it combines science education with entertainment. Through playful scene design and rich content, it fulfills the expo’s educational mission while incorporating strong theme park elements that resonate with its target audience, offering a variety of cutting-edge, fun, and vivid activities to revitalize the traditional exhibition format.

Dingshi Mountain Shell Mound Site Museum: The building consists of two floors of exhibition halls and three terraced rooftop sections. The layered roof resembles both shells and terraced fields, symbolizing the stratified history of the shell mound site and evoking multiple associations. As a specialized museum, it primarily displays Neolithic stone and bone artifacts unearthed from the Dingshi Mountain site, showcasing the development timeline of the Pearl River Basin’s Neolithic shell mound culture and the ancient human civilization of Nanning.

Performance Center: Also known as the Sai Ge Stage, it is located on the east side of Qingshui Lake in the garden expo park, facing Qingshui Pavilion to the northwest across the lake. With a total floor area of 2,510 m², the performance center is built by the water, using the landscape as a stage backdrop. It hosts live performances, folk singing contests, traditional festival events, and offers comprehensive services. The building is an open-air terrace theater consisting of one stage and three stands. Its roof is supported by tree-like columns, featuring a triangular geometric grid that creates a textured, undulating surface. The roofing uses wood-grain aluminum panels, sunshade metal grilles, and polycarbonate sheets, combining solid and void elements. The entire structure resembles a large banyan tree rooted by the lake, blending seamlessly with the natural surroundings.

Visitor Service Center: Integrated with the park’s main entrance, it primarily provides visitor services, reception and exhibitions, office management, and ticketing functions for those queuing at the gate.

Creating “Eighty Gardens and Eight Scenic Spots”

The park plans six major thematic exhibition areas: China City Gardens, ASEAN Garden, Silk Road Garden, Guangxi Garden, Designers’ Garden, and Corporate Gardens, totaling 80 individual gardens. These include 44 China City Gardens, 10 ASEAN Gardens, 9 Silk Road Gardens, 1 Guangxi Garden, 5 Designers’ Gardens, and 11 Corporate Gardens.

China City Gardens: Featuring 44 cities that have hosted previous garden expos, are sister cities to Nanning, are among China’s first ecological garden cities, or are provincial capitals. Divided by the Garden Expo Axis into northern and southern zones — the north, adjacent to water, is themed as traditional gardens; the south, with more hills, is designed as modern gardens. It showcases classic Chinese garden designs, highlights urban characteristics, and presents innovations in garden construction.

ASEAN Garden: As the first ASEAN Garden in the history of the expo, it leverages Nanning’s position as a frontier city for ASEAN cooperation. Ten representative ASEAN cities participate. The garden includes 10 individual gardens surrounding the ASEAN Friendship Museum, forming an indoor-outdoor Southeast Asian landscape area that displays original works by renowned ASEAN designers and authentically preserves the garden landscapes and cultural features of Southeast Asian nations.

Silk Road Garden: Inviting cities along the Belt and Road and renowned gardening nations, it highlights Guangxi’s role as an important gateway in China’s Belt and Road strategy. Like a vibrant ribbon connecting the world, the Silk Road Garden showcases garden landscapes from representative cities along the route. Interpreting the expo theme “Eco-Livable Gardens Fulfilling Dreams” from an international perspective, it reflects the profound friendship and mutual cooperation between China and Belt and Road countries across various fields.

Guangxi Garden: As the host garden of the expo and the largest single garden on-site, it adopts the theme “Ba Gui Tian Jing” (Guangxi’s Heavenly Scene). Utilizing the site’s hilly terrain and existing vegetation, it creates five scenic realms — Stone Realm, Stream Realm, Tree Realm, Na Realm, and Sky Realm — artistically and scenically interpreting Guangxi’s unique natural landscape and historical-cultural identity. It comprehensively presents the life of the Zhuang ethnic group, the urban-rural scenery of Guangxi, and the region’s garden characteristics and livable city achievements. The garden incorporates Zhuang elements such as brocade, embroidered balls, bronze drums, and stilt houses, blending folk culture with landscape artistry to depict a vibrant and hopeful image of Guangxi.

Designers’ Garden: Open to public submissions, outstanding creative designs are transformed into reality. The garden adheres to the principles of “nature first, people-oriented, integrated development,” highlighting the three features of “ecology, culture, and sharing.” Based on protecting the existing terrain, vegetation, and applying ecological restoration and sponge city technologies, it maximizes ecological functionality and demonstrates sustainable coexistence between humanity, nature, cities, and ecology.

Corporate Garden: A temporary exhibition area inviting well-known domestic landscaping and eco-environmental companies. Built using green, ecological, and modern landscape design technologies, it serves as a platform for companies to showcase their image and capabilities, fostering collaboration and mutual benefits for shared growth.

Beyond the diverse themed gardens, the public area of the garden expo park features eight unique scenic spots: Reed Pond Layers, Linglong Green View, Pine & Drum Welcome, Floral Pavilion in Sunshine, Qingshui Moonlight, Poolside Sentiment, Colorful Quarry, and Shell Mound Heritage. Each spot showcases distinct landscapes, offering ever-changing views. Among them, Reed Pond Layers is located west near the Bachi River, highlighting wetland ponds, aquatic flowers, and century-old trees. Linglong Green View utilizes the park’s largest water body, Linglong Lake, and Linglong Island to present an ecological scene of a calm lake and verdant island, ideal for leisure and wellness. Pine & Drum Welcome is at the central main entrance, featuring landscapes like a podocarpus garden, azalea woods, and a bronze drum plaza to create a grand entrance. Floral Pavilion in Sunshine reflects the core area’s floral abundance with Qingshui Pavilion mirrored in the lake. Qingshui Moonlight crafts a tranquil, ecological curved waterway by a natural spring. Poolside Sentiment, located southwest, centers on love, offering a wedding photography base and love-themed park. Colorful Quarry highlights ecological restoration of mining pits with innovative landscaping. Shell Mound Heritage uses the archaeological site as a platform to showcase historical culture.