The mayor of Seoul, Won-soon Park, has officially opened a 983 metre long botanical “floating walkway” along a transformed city highway.

Designed by Dutch architects MVRDV, the Skygarden, known as Seoullo 7017, is a linear park featuring 24,000 plants, trees, shrubs and flowers from 200 local species – creating “a walkable plant library” for residents and visitors to the city.

“Skygarden offers a living dictionary of plants which are part of the natural heritage of South Korea,” said MVRDV founder Winy Maas.

“They are planted in containers of different size and height and organised in groups of families. The families are ordered according to the Korean alphabet. This leads to surprising spatial compositions”.

Inspired in part by New York’s High Line, the project was conceived to make the city, and especially the central station district, greener, friendlier and more attractive, whilst connecting all patches of green in the wider area.

The architects, the municipality, local NGO’s, landscape teams and city advisers all collaborated on the project. New bridges and stairs connect the overpass with hotels, shops and gardens – integrating the scheme with the communities it passes over.

The Skygarden is separated into several zones, including a collection of small gardens with their own compositions, perfumes, colours and seasonal themes.

At night, the park is illuminated in blue lights, and during festivals and celebrations, different colours can be used to create a celebratory atmosphere.

MVRDV worked together with co-architects, DMP, and a dedicated team of experts including Saman Engineering for structural consultation, Rogier van der Heide and Nanam ALD for lighting, and Ben Kuipers and KECC on the landscape design and plant varieties.

The name ‘Seoullo’ translates as ‘towards Seoul’, while 7017 marks the overpass’ construction year of 1970, and its new function as a public walkway in 2017. There are also 17 connected paths on the route, and the overpass is 17 metres high.

An exclusive interview with Winy Maas about the project will feature in the next issue of CLADmag.