Seventeen million people live in Shenzhen, China—it is the electronics workshop for the world. A giant rail terminal and depot for repairing trains were built near the bridge to Hong Kong, with a roof three-fourth of a mile long and 160 to 200 feet wide, about 50 feet high. The building acted as a giant wall, cutting the residential areas off from the waterfront.
Beijing Landscape Architects Crossboundaries describes the project:
The roof was long enough that it could be divided into five sections serving a school, a professional sports training area, another school, and an area for the general public. The architects note: “In a functional sense, the strip satisfies the needs of multiple user groups for sport and leisure facilitation, becoming a linear recreation hub serving the neighborhood.”
There are a series of trails running the length of the park, with great views of the city and of the harbor, high enough so that one can look over the vast border control plaza leading to the bridge to Hong Kong.
The designers applied “environmental and sustainable principles” like lots of wood, green areas, “and permeable architectural structures, not only for buildings, but also for bridges and rails.” They note: “The greenery planted along the pathways provides shade, while also contributing to efficient drainage and microclimate conditions.”
The most interesting thing about this scheme is the way it puts an existing roof to use: There are millions and millions of square feet of roof that could be put to use as rooftop farms, solar energy facilities, or as we see here, public uses. The problem is that most roofs are not designed to take much more load than a bit of mechanical equipment, people walking around, or in northern climates, a bit of snow.
When you add stuff on top of roofs, the building often needs additional bracing for wind and seismic loads. It might even need to have the foundations beefed up. On one project I worked on as a developer, we had to beef up the columns with weird plates and braces so they wouldn’t punch right through the footings. In another, we had to build a monster steel truss structure up through the middle of the building to brace the whole thing.
So there are not likely going to be a lot of projects like the Shenzhen Skypark—not too many buildings have concrete roofs that you can just go and add stuff to. But it does show how useful rooftops can be. And if they can’t hold a sports field, then fill’em up with solar panels.
