Glasshouse Greenhouse by India Hobson and Magnus Edmondson

Author:India Hobson and Magnus Edmondson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pavilion Books

CLOUD FOREST

Gardens by the Bay, Singapore

Words escape us when it comes to describing the Cloud Forest at Gardens by the Bay, a nature park, garden and tourist attraction in the Marina Bay area of Singapore. It’s somewhere we think should be experienced first-hand – it really can’t be adequately explained using language and is even difficult to do justice in photographs.

Possibly the newest of all of the stops on our greenhouse tour, the Cloud Forest is one of two conservatories that opened to the public in 2012, designed by architects WilkinsonEyre, and the two structures morph out of the water like sea creatures that have come to rest in the South Bay Garden. Gardens by the Bay form part of a government initiative to increase the quality of life of the people of Singapore by populating the city with green spaces and they attract millions of visitors each year.

We had a short conversation before we approached the automatic doors of the conservatory, having already stood underneath the Supertree Grove (actually much smaller in real life than we thought it would be, but no less impressive) and it dawned on us that we may have unrealistic expectations about what we would find inside this greenhouse, especially one that we had just endured a total of 15 hours flying time to see.

Although we had seen other people’s images, and had read extensively about what we would find here, the fact remained that we didn’t really know what we were going to see and whether it would enthral us in the way we hoped. All we knew for certain was that the Cloud Forest Dome is home to the world’s highest indoor waterfall, and that the room temperature is somewhere in the region of 75ºF (24ºC), but we had no idea of the internal layout, or just how much that temperature would impact on us, despite it only being a few degrees lower than outside the dome.

As we walked through the turnstiles and the doors beyond, all our concerns disappeared. The waterfall stands at an incredible 115ft (35m) and fills our vision completely, throwing a wave of cool air over us, as well as a light mist of water. The vapour tingles as it meets our warm skin and we feel the full effect as a refreshing contrast to the air outside. The awesome power of the cascading water is demonstrated by an immense noise as it crashes into the pool below, causing us to shout excitedly to one another. We spend a while underneath the towering mountain, straining our necks while gaining a sense of the climate of the cloud forest.

Lying at the centre of the dome, the ‘mountain’ consists of 2,577 panels of glass cut into 690 different shapes that cover an area of over 129,167sq. ft (12,000sq. m), and aims to replicate the environment found somewhere between 1,000 and 3,000ft (305 and 915m) above sea level – such as those found in the tropical mountain areas of Southeast Asia and Central and South America.

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