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OVER THE VALLEY

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Hebel province ,China
2017

OVER THE VALLEY

 “The biggest greenhouse in the human history.”

 

 This is the project“Over the Valley”.

 The site is located the Hebel province of China.The forestation of mountains and highway constructions are under way. There is a spectacular plan to make the whole mountainous area into an “Utopia.”The plan has a service zone with an exhibition and a conference hall and hotels, a recreational zone located in an ecosphere in the mountains with many rivers, a cultural zone introducing various ethnic cultural groups in China, a commercial zone, a sports area built by the lake side in the mountains, a residential zone with villas and in the center of this developing site, there is a valley at the scale of 15 hectares.

 

 The valley surrounded by the mountains that are 286m to 310m high is at the center of this area and the master plan proposes to change this whole area into a tourist destination. It’s a large scale plan to make the whole valley into a large greenhouse covered by the glass roofs, where trees and plants brought from Hainan Island, China will be planted.

 

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“The biggest greenhouse in the human history.”

 

 “This…!!!!

 "The biggest greenhouse ever built "

 We are going to build a greenhouse that never has been built before.To build such architecture in this valley is nothing but an adventure.It's an adventure to make a botanical garden in this valley.

 The total area is 150,000m2

 Use the topography of the valley as it is/ following the topography.We use the original shape of the valley to build a greenhouse.The most beautiful shape is the nature itself.  It is also very complicated. There are no greenhouses in the shape of a valley. It is not planned to do land formation, because it costs a lot.

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 “It is a big roof covering the valley.”

 This greenhouse is topography by itself.

 It is such a kind of scale.

 It is a dream, a valley with clouds.

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“A huge roof covers the greenhouse in the valley. 

 Cartoons easy to understanding! /check the easy cartoon.

 The shape of the big roof is the shape of the valley itself and it is divided into 8 areas by free hand curved lines. It is flat and made out of glass all over. The reason we designed it flat is logical and clear. The cartoon summarizes this.

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“How to imagine the vastness of the valley of clouds? “

 

 This roof itself looks like a landscape.

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“The basic concept of the structure“

 The hight of the column that supports the structure of “cloud valley” is not higher than 40m. The shape of the structure seems like a forest and it is suitable for a botanical garden.  We don’t feel strange about it.

 The roof like rice terrace fields, a large-scale concept for the roof,

 This large roof is gently divided into 8 parts like rice terrace fields. These 8 areas are united into one, thus creating a topological beauty.

 The Shape = Rice Terrace.

 We have designed the form like rice terraces.

 It has beautiful curves similar to the natural shape. It bears the simplicity of a flat straight line. The simple form does not disturb the beauty of natural ups and downs of the valley.

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“Spanned string beam, which simply supports the glass roof of clouds ".

 "Beam string strustuce" is adopted for the structure.

 This is the most unique beautiful beam in the world.

This is  one-directional beam with less components, allowing fair sky view. It is simple and clear. Common space frames have so many member components and it is quite obstructive. It is difficult to get a clear sky view and it blocks out the sunlight.

 

“The Pantadome system”

 It is very costly to build scaffolds to build large roofs at this vast site. Therefore, they are built on the ground and lifted up. This construction method is called the “the Pantadome system.” We are the only one’s  in the world to utilize this structural method.

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Over The Valley

Credits:Eastern Design Office

KAWAGUCHI & ENGINEERS

CHEN ZHIHUA, XIA DUN WANG

Location: Hebel province ,China

Building area: 150,000 m2

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