Urban Bloom / AIM Architecture + URBAN MATTERS

Urban Bloom in Shanghai (2018) is an experiment in urban space and activities taking precedent over a design’s intention or infrastructure’s needs. The only need here was for freedom, and the intention is joy. Urban Bloom renews, and invigorates, urbanism – in fact, the original location was a parking lot. Transformed into an ideal urban garden, and constructed entirely from artificial means, it is a project for a city that emphasizes people.

Balloon like shapes hold colorful foliage, and float above the courtyard like the leaves of trees, flooding the space with shadows and shapes. Rich varieties of flowers and vegetation were placed among the modules, and as they bloom and grow, the platform will be transformed into an open, welcoming garden.

Anfu Road was a perfect street to introduce this concept, as it’s a popular street that mixes residential compound with offices, restaurants, shops, and schools. Thirty something slab towers sit neatly next to 3 story lanehouses. This mix of scale is quite unique in shanghai. Anfu Road is proof that you do not need to flatten the old city to create new life, or to generate prosperity to an ever evolving city. But what it didn’t have is a park. So why not create a place that cultivates this pleasure and happiness?