Longking Pro-Environmental Campus

Longyan, Fujian

The site is located on former agriculture land in a pristine valley in the mountains North of Longyan city. Natural springs and overflow from the mountain reservoir pass through the center of the site to the Warao creek, which is the headwaters of a river system connecting with Xiamen.

The client Longking specializes in industrial environmental protection equipment and research. The campus includes eight working factories, one corporate tower, one R&D tower, and an exhibition hall. For the landscape design BAM showcases the environmental technologies pioneered by the Longking company. Wastewater from the office tower is treated with a Longking integrated sewage treatment unit and then filtered through engineered and natural wetlands whereafter it is introduced into the landscape water system. The client genetically engineers varieties of rice which remove heavy metals from topsoil, a program which BAM enclosed within a conical tent structure to prevent animals from entering the heavy metal soil zone.

Apart from showcasing plant-based and technological methods for water and soil filtration, the spaces of the campus also provide opportunities for rest and recreation. A tea house in a bamboo hat-shaped pavilion, athletic courts, and day beds under a linear trellis provide production line workers, researchers, and business staff the opportunity to create a new form of recreational engagement with the various ecological processes and technologies which are the fruits of their labor. Any constructed landscape is not only about the natural processes of ecological recovery, but also about creating a medium through which humans can engage and better perceive the underlying processes, those which we are deeply reliant upon.