Exterior of “Secrets of Forest” (Picture provided by the interviewee)

CHONGQING (CQNEWS) -- Everyone needs a “tree hole” in his or her heart to talk about the worries or to carry the dreams, but what should the “tree hole” look like when it becomes real? A team from Chongqing University created a 16-square-meter “Tree Hole” out of bamboos and won two first prizes at International Garden-making Festival.

Interior details of “Secrets of Forest” (Picture provided by the interviewee)

Winning the first prize in both design and construction among hundreds of universities at home and abroad

Under the theme of “The Garden of Mystery”, the 2020 Chengdu Park City International Festival & the 3rd BFU International Garden-making Festival asked participants to build gardens based on respect for the natural characteristics and construction techniques of original bamboos, and to express the designers’ understanding of the poetic meaning of gardens through the use of flowers. Nearly 2,000 students majored in horticulture and designers from 101 universities and organizations at home and abroad applied for the design competition. And 17 competition schemes were eventually selected from 241 submissions. The entry “Secrets of Forest” from Chongqing University won the first prize.

It is known that the team that created “Secrets of Forest” was guided by two teachers, Xia Hui and Luo Dan from the Program of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chongqing University, and eight postgraduates majored in Landscape Architecture of Grade 2019. After winning the first prize in Design Competition for the 3rd BFU International Garden-making Festival 2020 co-sponsored by the Chinese Society of Landscape Architecture and Beijing Forestry University in June this year, this work won the first prize again in the field construction competition.

Interior of “Secrets of Forest” (Picture provided by the interviewee)

Inspired by tree hole; hoping users to listen to their own voices

Modeled after a tree hole, “Secrets of Forest” is a 4-meter-long, 4-meter-wide and 3-meter-high landscape structure made of bamboo skins and bamboo frames in the shape of a spherical opening. According to Luo Dan, one of the instructors of the work, the scheme was actually originally conceived as a prototype of two large trees, using the trunks of the trees to interpret the enclosed space. The bamboos twist and extend to form a circular dome as a roof interface, “For the first time, we tied and weaved bamboos into bamboo skins, so that the disorderly bamboos and the orderly bamboo skins are woven together as two main materials. From the outside the furry “tree hole” sleeps peacefully in the forest.”

The design team also made a 4-minute short film about a designer, Mr. Rabbit, who faces stressful life and work problems in the city and dreams of a mysterious and secure tree hole; Mr. Rabbit sits down with a happy rabbit who has built the tree hole to live in the forest and pours his heart out; when he walks out of the tree hole, he discovers that the happy rabbit is the one he once was. “Therefore, we also thought of making a hole in the building to reflect light and clouds, branches and shadows into the interior space, thus creating a communication and penetration between nature and the structure. And we also hope that users can communicate, rest, talk and meditate in it,” Luo Dan said.

A lively garden behind the Tree Hole (Picture provided by the interviewee)

People feeling like in a forest due to the pine bark covering in the floor of the work (Picture provided by the interviewee)

In addition, the work is currently on display at Guixi Park in Chengdu till the end of November. (Translated by Wang Huixin, Fathom Language Limited)