How can "Night Park" avoid homogenization? The 500 year old classical garden in Shanghai attempts a "time travel" activity | Night tour | Landscape

In the classical gardens shrouded in night, the sound of guqin and xiao can be heard from time to time. Guided by the "Lotus Fairy", more than ten tourists "traveled" to Yiyuan over 300 years ago, where they met the sixth garden owner Li Yizhi, who was skilled in poetry, literature, and drama, and saw the blooming lotus and water lilies at night.

This is the first immersive night tour activity launched by Shanghai Guyi Garden this year. On June 22nd, 23rd, and July every Saturday, two immersive night tours will be arranged each night, one lasting about half an hour.

Will this attempt become a benchmark for the transformation and upgrading of Shanghai's "Night Park"?

Homogenization

Since the 1990s, a group of parks in Shanghai, represented by the Shanghai Zoo, have successively launched night tours. After the opening of the local animal area of the Shanghai Zoo in 2019, it immediately became an important check-in point for night tours that year, bringing the "Shanghai Indigenous" raccoon dog, who likes to appear at night, into everyone's sight.

In recent years, parks or attractions such as Shanghai Botanical Garden, Chenshan Botanical Garden, Gongqing Forest Park, Shanghai Binjiang Forest Park, and Shanghai Wildlife Park have accumulated rich experience in the development of night tours. They have launched night tours such as "Animal Wonderful Night", "Secret Night Elf Visit", "Chenshan Wonderful Night", and "Exploring Night Forest", which have been loved and praised by a large number of citizens and tourists.

"Chen Mountain Wonderful Night" picture analysis of these types of night activities, mainly divided into two types.

One type is a specialized park with a good foundation of animal resources, and the route setting for night tours mainly revolves around exhibition areas and halls for nocturnal animals.

Another type is other parks, and the route setting for night tours is mainly based on the experience of observing organisms in the park before, exploring areas where nocturnal animals are more common.

But in addition, it is difficult for the night tours currently carried out in Shanghai parks to break away from traditional forms such as summer camps and natural science education.

Gradually, more and more new voices are emerging, and people hope that parks can pay attention to the issue of homogenization of night tourism activities, providing more diverse and diverse night tourism experiences.

During the night tour of Chenshan Botanical Garden, all the gorgeous greenhouse pictures are far-sighted.

Regarding the issue of homogenization of park night tourism activities, the person in charge of a municipal park admitted that currently, the parks in Shanghai that carry out night tourism activities are all "part-time", and the planning and construction did not consider too many night functions. This has led to most parks only launching traditional forms of night tourism activities such as summer camps and natural science education, unless a comprehensive upgrade of software and hardware is carried out.

The reason why Guyi Garden can launch an immersive night tour activity this year is largely due to the completion of the night scene lighting project in 2019. This is the largest night scene lighting project in Guyi Garden since the 1950s, which has laid a solid foundation for night tour activities.

Night view of Guyi Garden

"It is difficult to create a brand new night scene lighting in classical gardens," said Sun Jia, the head of the Cultural and Conservation Department of Guyi Garden. The main difficulty lies in the numerous protected buildings and cultural relics in classical gardens.

For example, laying circuits and optical fibers usually requires opening the ground, but even a single tile in Guyi Garden may have a lot of potential. Therefore, before starting construction, it is necessary to refer to as many historical drawings, literature and other relevant materials as possible, in order to design and implement a construction method that minimizes damage to the ground as much as possible.

For example, some routes may pass through historical buildings such as Yi Ye Tang in the park, or protected ancient trees and famous trees such as Long Jiao Huai. In this case, it is necessary to carefully consider a "detour" plan. Even if the plan is much more complex than a "straight walk," it must be ensured that it does not cause any adverse effects on historical buildings or ancient trees and famous trees.

Classical gardens do not allow large machinery to enter the construction, and the vast majority of pipeline projects rely mainly on manual labor. So, from developing the feasibility plan for the project to its successful completion, it took a full three years for the night scene lighting project in Guyi Garden.

Only with foresight can there be a higher quality "night park". Knowing the difficulty of patching in the later stage, many experts and industry insiders suggest that in the future, if Shanghai plans a specialized "night park", it can refer to successful experiences at home and abroad. When planning and designing, targeted service facilities should be provided within the park, or at least leave space for future night tourism activities to be patched in the later stage.

"Yiyuan Butler" invited to paint a fan during a night tour activity

Children set up lotus lanterns in Guyi Garden

A model of learning

When it comes to park night tours, the Singapore Night Safari, which opened in 1994, has always been a model in the industry.

In addition to being the world's first wildlife park specifically designed for nocturnal animals, it is also known for its exquisitely designed scenery and exciting performances showcasing exotic cultures. Based on Singapore's geographical location and natural characteristics, the park mainly plans parade routes around Asian animals, welcoming over one million visitors annually.

It has also boosted ticket sales for "neighbors" - Singapore Zoo and River Ecological Park, forming a combination of day and night tourism products and thriving the local consumer market. Many people believe that it perfectly achieves a balance between wildlife conservation and the development of the cultural and tourism market.

Looking at China, Suzhou Humble Administrator's Park is also an excellent case of "Night Park". Starting from 2021, Humble Administrator's Garden has launched the "Humble Administrator Asking Elegance" night tour project, which utilizes sound and light technology to activate traditional culture and art, interpreting classic gardens in a form that is in line with modern aesthetics, and allowing Suzhou cultural symbols such as Suzhou embroidery and sculpture to enter the eyes and hearts.

Especially in the climax of "Humble Administrator Asking Elegance", "Heart Garden Asking the Moon", in the central area of the Humble Administrator's Garden, the designer uses light and shadow changes to achieve the transformation of the four seasons in the picture, reproducing the picturesque scenery of green mountains and rivers that ancient people can enjoy. The program ends with 26 laser lights shining into the sky, symbolizing "unity of heaven and man".

In order to achieve the level of "minimal intervention", the lighting fixtures, projectors, and other equipment for the Humble Administrator's Park night tour are arranged and taken away on the same day, and the activity area is controlled in the central garden area, which is about a quarter of the total land area.

"The advanced experience at home and abroad is an example for us to learn from," said He Shiwei, a staff member of the management department of Guyi Garden. After multiple rounds of trial operation, Guyi Garden will collect and analyze the opinions and suggestions of citizens and tourists, and continuously optimize and adjust night tour activities.

He Shiwei revealed that the park is indeed considering whether to introduce facilities and equipment such as 3D technology projection, CNC lighting, and modern audio, but everything must be based on the protection of the park's animal and plant ecosystem, precious historical buildings, and cultural relics.