“Nature Gate” Youth Olympic Park Monument

Nanjing

WATCH THE NATURE GATE VIDEO!

Double Gateway

The Nature Gate functions similarly to the city wall gates of Nanjing: a major ceremonial path passes through the center of the gate on the urban axis. A second path, in this case, a park zone rather than the city wall path, passes through the Gate in the cross direction.

Sound

The simple and elegant form of the gate performs naturally as an enhanced acoustical device. Sound from the inside of the Nature Gate, like the cascading fall of water, is projected into the Jiajing Riverside Park. And conversely, like an ear, the Nature Gate amplifies the sounds of the external environment for those standing inside of the gate.

Play

The Nature Gate utilizes playful forms and landscape planning to enhance the park experience for visitors in a memorable and fun way. The scheme ties into the existing axis and park design through a thread-like path that pulls visitors through a series of spectacular views of the CBD, the monument, and the footbridge.

Landmark

The Nature Gate is designed as a double gateway celebrating both the urban axis of the Youth Olympic Games Village CBD and the Jiajiang Riverside park. The double-curved shape of the "yoyo" encloses the “Nature Gateway,” funnelling the park scenery and a waterfall into the space. On the urban axis, the "yoyo" form creates a celebratory gate shape that visitors can pass under on their way to the footbridge.

The orientation of the "yoyo" shape funnels sunlight from noon-time to evening through the opening of the Gateway to the Amphitheater Bowl. Furthermore, the reflecting pond is located on the south side of the monument, allowing for a great deal of sunlight to play against the waterfall feature and also reflect from the pond up into the ceiling of the "yoyo" form.

Climbing into the Nature Gate visitors reach a platform vista overlooking the great opening of the portal of the Nature Gate. The handrail design on this platform includes a built-in water feature, that when active creates a cascade of water from the railing down the south opening of the nature gate into the reflecting pool. The lively sound of the waterfall echos through the Nature Gate and is naturally amplified by the form of the structure into the surrounding park.

In addition to the natural sounds of the falling water, the design makes provisions for the addition of artificial sound through the inclusion of a speaker system in the central ring of the "yoyo" structure. Nature sounds or occasionally special programs for festivals or events can be programmed into the sound system, which will be naturally amplified into the surrounding park.

Waterfall Platform and Sound

Climbing into the nature gate visitors reach a platform vista overlooking the great opening of the portal of the Nature Gate. The handrail design on this platform includes a built-in water feature, that when active creates a cascade of water from the railing down the South opening of the nature gate into the reflecting pool. The lively sound of the waterfall echos through the Nature Gate and is naturally amplified by the form of the structure into the surrounding park.

In addition to the natural sounds of the falling water the design makes provisions for the addition of artificial sound through the inclusion of a speaker system in the central ring of the "yoyo" structure. Nature sounds or occasionally special programs for festivals or events can be programmed into the sound system, which will be naturally amplified into the surrounding park.

Lighting

The monument and bridge are developed with an extensive lighting program using top-quality lighting equipment.

Ribbon Footbridge

The Ribbon Footbridge spans 450m across the Jiajing river supported by 3 tilted masts. The angles of the tilted masts interact with a curving bridge deck in a delicate interplay of structural dynamics. In this bridge design, the bridge deck arc shapes create compression trusses. These compression trusses are suspended from the tilted masts, thereby eliminating the need for additional structure.

This structural concept creates an exciting serpentine path that offers pedestrians an ever-changing focal point of the CBD Skyline as they cross the bridge.

This ambitious bridge concept, if executed, will be the world’s first bridge of this type at the described spans. According to engineers on the team, this exciting bridge concept is “possible, but difficult [to engineer.]”