The Nature Gate:  "When you make music you can no longer hear the sound of nature, and nature is the most beautiful music of all." - Ancient Chinese Proverb

Check out the video - No need to read the text!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoAO-3DkpCo

The Yoyo is designed as a double gateway celebrating both the urban axis of the Youth Olympic Games Village CBD and the Jiajiang Riverside park.  The double curved shape of the Yoyo encloses the “Nature Gateway,” funneling the park scenery and a waterfall into the space. On the urban axis the Yoyo Form creates a celebratory gate shape that visitors can pass under on their way to the footbridge. 

The orientation of the Yoyo shape funnels sunlight from noon-time to evening through the opening of the Gateway to the Amphitheatre Bowl.  Furthermore, the reflecting pond is located on the South Side of the Monument, allowing for a great deal of sunlight to play against the waterfall feature and also reflect from the pond up into the ceiling of the Yoyo form. 

Double Gateway
The Nature Gate functions similarly to the city wall gates of Nanjing--a major ceremonial path passes through the center of the gate on the urban axis.  A second path, in this case a park zone rather than the city wall path, passes through the Gate in the cross direction. 

Sound
The simple and elegant form of the gate performs naturally as an enhanced acoustical device.  Sound from the inside of the Nature Gate, like the cascading fall of water, is projected into the Jiajing Riverside Park.  And conversely, like an ear, the Nature Gate amplifies the sounds of the external environment for those standing inside of the gate. 

Play
The Nature Gate scheme utilizes playful forms and landscape planning to enhance the park experience for visitors in a memorable and fun way. 
The scheme ties into the existing axis and park design through a thread-like path that pulls visitors through a series of spectacular views of the CBD, the monument, and the footbridge

The Ribbon Footbridge spans 450m across the Jiajing river supported by 3 tilted masts.  The angles of the tilted masts interact with a curving bridge deck in a delicate interplay of structural dynamics.  In this bridge design the bridge deck arc shapes create compression trusses.  These compression trusses are suspended are suspended from the tilted masts, thereby eliminating the need for additional structure. This structural concept creates an exciting serpentine path that offers pedestrians an ever-changing focal point of the CBD Skyline as they cross the bridge. 

This ambitious bridge concept, if executed, will be the world’s first bridge of this type at the described spans.  According to engineers on the team, this exciting bridge concept is “possible, but difficult [to engineer.]”