‘Supertrees’ and ‘Biodomes’ Rise above Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay

Architizer News

‘Supertrees’ and ‘Biodomes’ Rise above Singapore’s Gardens by the Bay

June 25, 2012

Last month, we wrote about the soaring steel “supertrees” that have cropped up on the shore of Singapore Bay. Those spindly structures, whose moss-covered trunks rise some 25-50 meters skyward before fanning out into flower-bearing branches, are just part of Gardens by the Bay, a sweeping greenscape that foregrounds Moshe Safdie’s Marina Bay Sands complex.

Designed by Grant Associates in collaboration with Wilkinson Eyre Architects, the just-completed park consists of several pavilions and zones, including a pair of swelling steel-and-glass conservatories–so-called ‘biodomes’–housing horticulture sourced from both mild and tropical climates and, among other things, an all-weather “edutainment” space. There are also several collections of themed gardens, such as the ‘Heritage Gardens’–four in total, each of which have been named and planned according to the floral catalog they contain–and the ‘World of Plants’, which consists of six gardens that collectively aim to showcase the planet’s “biodiversity of plant life.” Don’t miss the Marina promenade a kilometer-long boardwalk that snakes along the marina’s edge and connects the gardens to the city center or forget to charter a boat taxi down ‘Dragonfly Lake’, an equally large water feature that creates a dramatic setting from which to view the complex as a whole. Click through for more.