Taiyuan Botanical Garden

Moving Walks
Taiyuan, Shanxi, China

submitted by Birgitta Van den Driessche, TKE

Occupying the site of a former coal mine, the Taiyuan Botanical Garden was transformed into a modern landscape park and museum by Austrian architect firm Delugan Meissl. Key features of this park include three domed greenhouses and a large terrace providing a panoramic view across the park. A pair of moving walks provided by TK Elevator (TKE) extends through an opening in the roof of the building entrance.

Challenge

This project is of great importance to TKE, because the pair of moving walks set new records as the longest and highest (in terms of rise) moving walks installed by TKE in China.

With the moving walks serving as an iconic element of the park’s design and the sole entrance to the panoramic terrace, tremendous focus was dedicated to stringent testing and quality checks during the manufacturing stage at TKE’s Zhongshan factory. A dedicated TKE team tirelessly coordinated with multiple stakeholders to ensure these products fully complement the breathtaking design of the park and offer the best experience to visitors.

Solution

Upon learning about the project’s unique requirements, the China team felt that TKE’s proven moving walks were the ideal solution and recommended them to the customer. The orinoco is a very versatile moving walk, incorporating various advanced safety features, such as handrail inlet protection, double shoe braking and more, into a robust, reliable and unique design. The orinoco has a proven track record in offering superb passenger comfort and is widely used in airports and commercial facilities worldwide.

Agility and Technical Expertise

When it came to the installation of the moving walks, there was a lot to consider. Unlike moving walk installations in shopping malls or airports, the area surrounding the moving walks is part of the iconic design and needed to be very carefully protected. Also, the extraordinary length of the units and the incline posed great challenges.

With TKE’s long-standing expertise in the industry, its China team provided an all-encompassing solution to the customer at the planning stage to win their confidence. Three different installation methods were considered, including the use of huge cranes and sliding rails, but ultimately the gantry method recommended by TKE engineers was chosen. By custom-building five gantries as tall as 16 m, supported by multiple mega-sized H-bars on the ground to lift the moving walk units in place, the pair of orinoco moving walks was successfully installed while ensuring zero damage to the iconic main building.

Customer First

The Taiyuan Botanical Garden is a key tourism and sustainability-themed government project in Taiyuan. It is a perfect opportunity to showcase engineering, products and installation workmanship to not only locals but also tourists from across the country.

As in every project, TKE takes the requirements of its customers very seriously. Sales and design engineers, as well as the technical team, were involved early on at the proposal stage to provide comprehensive pre-sales product advice and support to representatives of the government and the appointed architects.

To reinforce the customer’s understanding of TKE’s products and expertise and show that the orinoco moving walks were the ideal solution for this application, the TKE team arranged General Arrangement Drawing (GAD) support to give the project owners a preview of how the products would fit into the design; factory and site visits were also arranged to provide the people involved in this project with first-hand experience of TKE’s product and installation quality.

It was TKE’s customer-centric pre-sales support, the entrepreneurship displayed by each TKE staff member, the outstanding engineering of TKE products and the many success stories that together gave the customer and their appointed designers the confidence to have TKE’s orinoco play a major part in this award-winning design.

Strategic Value

Unlike other moving walk installations, the strategic importance of this project is that the pair of moving walks is now more than people-moving equipment hidden on the sides of the main structure – they are part of the iconic design of the main building. Successful completion of this project showcases to both park visitors and members of the public the exceptional build and aesthetic qualities of TKE products.

TKE Product/Solution:

• 2 TKE orinoco moving walks (12° incline, 1000 mm width, 11.85 m height and 62.4 m span)

• 6 elevators – TKE Evolution 1

Credits

Building owner: Taiyuan Gardens Bureau
Developer: Taiyuan Gardens Bureau
Architect and designer: Delugan Meissl Associated Architects/Valentien+Valentien Landschaftsarchitekten und Stadtplaner SRL
Planner: Beijing Beilin Landscape Architecture Institute Co., Ltd.
Other project participants (sales and installation): Taiyuan Liannuo Elevator Co., Ltd.; Jiangsu Tianmu Construction Group Elevator Engineering Co., Ltd.