As one of the most densely populated K-12 schools in Suzhou, landscape design plays a key role in optimizing limited space, enhancing students’ well-being, and addressing climate-related challenges. It maximizes indoor-outdoor connectivity through a network of rooftop gardens, atriums gardens, courtyards, and corridors, integrating resilient landscape into the high-density campus. Inspired by the Suzhou heritages, a series of courtyards are crafted as metaphorical abstractions representing both culture and nature. It explores a new school landscape model that integrates sustainable growth, outdoor learning, and students’ well-being, responding to the growing challenges of density and efficiency of China’s rapid urbanization.
The 5.2-hectare boarding school hosting over 3,000 students and staff, offers K-12 education, covering kindergarten through twelfth grade. It stands out as one of the most densely populated schools in Suzhou. The landscape design focuses on efficiently utilizing limited landscape spaces while also expanding rooftop gardens, atriums and grey spaces for students. This thoughtful approach aims to enhance students’ mental well-being.
The design creates easily accessible atriums, corridors, and rooftops to provide multi-sensory natural experience to help students release stress during busy school days and support mental restoration. The open frame structure of the 200m long elementary and high school building allows natural ventilation and daylight maximization in the linear courtyard, where tree and bamboo groves are filled in to create diverse experience and minimize building energy use. Despite the absence of air conditioning, this space remains comfortable and is warmly embraced by students.
Inspired by traditional Suzhou Gardens’ spatial strategy, four atrium gardens are embedded within Shanfeng Academy, which provides a diverse mix of cultural and sports programs, including theater, gallery, library, sports center, dance and fitness rooms, swimming pool, and café. These four atrium gardens symbolize the four seasons of Suzhou city, each infused with unique cultural and natural elements.
The Spring Garden exemplifies the sustainable use of local materials and a deep respect for the site’s history. Breaking free from the rigid corridor boundaries, recycled stone slabs introduce dynamic shifts in the landscape. Two apricot trees pay homage to the traditional practice of “Confucious lecturing at the Apricot Altar”, offering a serene reading and leisure space in nature. The water features in the Fall Garden blend natural changes with cultural significance. The fluctuation of water levels symbolizes the changing moon of the year, allowing observers to perceive the passage of time and learn about the lunar calendar. When the pool is filled, it signifies the enchanting moment of the full moon during the Mid-Autumn Festival.
The project’s ingenuity shines through various details. For instance, the landscape pavement in the entrance plaza reinterprets the traditional pattern of “Flower Street Paving” in Suzhou gardens in a contemporary way. Mindful of Suzhou’s rainy climate, the designers deliberately incorporated special overflow outlets and water dispersal features throughout the site. The geometrically crafted forms shape micro-scale “monolithic stones,” enhancing the poetic charm of raindrops under the eaves of Suzhou architecture.
Rooftop gardens, beyond mitigating heat island effects, become versatile and resilient landscape spaces, serving to students’ diverse daily needs. The layered landscape system retains stormwater and reduces surface runoff. Biodiversity species and drought-tolerant plants to create vibrant pollinator habitats and reduce water use for landscape irrigation. The kindergarten “Flower Field” is an interactive experimental ground for urban farming and on-site food production, while the “Grassland” utilizes low-maintenance varieties to improve ecological performance. The high school rooftop weaves a vibrant tapestry of cultivation zones and recreation spaces, offering outdoor classrooms for students to explore native species and promote sustainability awareness.
The design team balances traditional culture with contemporary interpretation, artistic expression with ecological harmony, aesthetics with practicality, and continues the spirit of Suzhou’s traditional craftsmanship in design and construction. Great emphasis is placed on creating a vibrant campus culture, tailoring diverse landscape spaces to the characteristics and needs of students across different age groups. By integrating architectural functions and circulation patterns, a clear framework for the landscape system is established. Lush vegetation permeates every corner of the campus—pathways, rooftops, plazas, courtyards, and boundaries.
Architecture offices involved in the design: OPEN、TJAD Qun Zeng
Location: Suzhou, China
Design year: 2021
Year Completed: 2023
