West Garden Florist is an 84-square-meter park amenity in Haidian Park, Beijing, where a flower shop and refreshment counter are organized beneath a planted timber canopy. Set among existing trees beside the central lawn and jogging track, the building uses an irregular plan, deep veranda, and permeable slatted structure to make shelter without imposing a conventional facade on the woodland.
West Garden Florist Technical Information
- ArchitectsLUO studio
- LocationHaidian Park, Haidian District, Beijing, China
- Gross Area84 m2 | 904 Sq. Ft.
- Project Years2024 – 2025
- Photographs© Jin Weiqi and Zhu Yumeng
Nature is not only the context of the project, but also the logic guiding its design and construction.
– Luo Yujie
Site Geometry Shaped by the Woodland
West Garden Florist occupies a clearing at the convergence of three park routes, between Haidian Park’s central lawn, a jogging track, and a dense grove of poplars and willows. Its role is modest but spatially consequential: it provides flowers, refreshments, and a place to pause within an area already defined by informal recreation. Runners pass close to its perimeter, while campers, families, and visitors moving toward the lawn encounter it as part of a continuous landscape route rather than as an isolated destination.
The irregular plan is derived from clearances between existing trunks and the trajectories of movement around them. Trees are not treated as residual obstacles around a predetermined volume; their spacing establishes the building’s shifting perimeter. This method avoids a singular frontal elevation or ceremonial entrance. Seen through trunks and foliage, the project registers first as a low planted mound, then as a dense timber thicket beneath its overhanging edge. Its architectural identity is consequently distributed across approach, partial views, and occupation rather than concentrated in a facade.
The Veranda as Public Park Infrastructure
A deep eave projects well beyond the glazed room, producing a continuous timber deck around the enclosed service area. This intermediate zone expands the limited retail programme into public park infrastructure. The roof provides protection from summer sun, rain, and winter precipitation, while the glazed perimeter maintains visual continuity between the interior and the grove. Open doors further reduce the distinction between shop, sheltered threshold, and park circulation.
The deck’s curved outer edge is profiled as a continuous bench, allowing the building to support uses that do not depend on purchase or formal entry. People can rest after running, supervise children, eat, read, or watch activity on the lawn from beneath the canopy. Its radial herringbone decking reinforces the sense that the veranda is gathered around the building rather than appended to it. By giving equal spatial emphasis to the occupied edge and the enclosed room, the project recognizes pause and observation as central elements of public life in the park.
Bundled Timber as Structure, Screen, and Display System
The perimeter structure consists of closely spaced bundles of standard-dimension timber slats, held together by exposed threaded steel rods, washers, and nuts. This assembly responds to the restricted access of a public park, where heavy transport and lifting equipment would compromise paths and disrupt daily use. The system relies on manageable components that can be brought to the site and assembled with relative precision, rather than on large prefabricated frames or materially intensive construction.
Each slatted bundle performs several roles at once. It acts as a column at ground level, splays outward to carry the broad eaves, and folds inward to interweave with adjacent members across the ceiling. The resulting structural continuity gives the canopy the appearance of having grown from the perimeter rather than being placed on top of it. Gaps between slats prevent the colonnade from reading as a solid wall, admitting views, shadows, and lateral light through the perimeter.
The threaded-rod connection also becomes an organizational datum for thin metal display shelves inserted between the timber bundles. Potted plants and flowers are therefore held within the same rhythm that stabilizes the structure. This integration avoids a separate layer of retail fit-out that might compete with the spatial system. Inside, the shelves, hanging vegetation, stainless steel service counter, and glazed enclosure remain secondary to the field of timber supports and the roof lattice overhead.
Planted Roof and Environmental Permeability
Above the woven timber canopy, a shallow planted roof forms a low and slightly irregular dome. The vegetation returns a portion of the occupied ground to the landscape while contributing insulation to the compact interior. From more distant views through the grove, the green surface obscures much of the building’s constructed mass, allowing the roof to read as an extension of the planted ground. In snow, this continuity becomes more pronounced, with the canopy merging visually with the surrounding white terrain while the timber perimeter remains exposed.
The planting palette is selected for Beijing’s northern climate, with cold-resistant and drought-tolerant species intended to endure a short growing season and lower maintenance regime. The roof is not conceived as a permanently lush surface. Its changing color, density, and seasonal coverage make climatic exposure visible, while its thin cantilevered edge preserves a sense of lightness beneath the planted layer.
Within the interior, circular skylights puncture the OSB and timber ceiling at regular intervals. These apertures introduce diffuse pools of daylight that shift across the floor and counter during the day, recalling sunlight filtered through the tree canopy outside. The project thus establishes environmental permeability through several overlapping means: the porous timber screen, deep shade under the eaves, opening glazed doors, planted roof, and overhead daylight. Rather than separating controlled interior space from the park, these elements calibrate degrees of shelter within the woodland.
About LUO studio
Founded by Luo Yujie in 2017, LUO studio is an architecture practice focused on sustainable construction, natural materials, and prefabricated steel and timber structures. The studio advocates using minimal materials to create universal spaces, connecting contemporary construction with traditional timber techniques, and exploring the reuse of temporary buildings, abandoned spaces, and materials in urban and rural areas.
Credits and Additional Notes
- Client: Beijing West Garden Culture Co., Ltd.
- Construction company: Shangmuzao (Beijing) Architectural Technology Co., Ltd.
- Designers: Luo Yujie, Wang Beilei, Hong Lun.
- Photographers: Jin Weiqi, Zhu Yumeng.
- Construction photography: LUO Studio. Model photography: Jin Weiqi.
