Gothenburg Botanic Gardens, Sweden

Rebuilding a world-class glasshouse collection for the next century

Gothenburg Botanic Garden, founded in 1923, is one of Europe’s largest and most significant botanic gardens, spread across 430 acres and home to more than 16,000 species. The garden is now undertaking the most ambitious project in its history: the design and construction of a new glasshouse complex and visitor centre, a transformation more than a decade in the planning and not expected to be complete until 2030.

Harris Bugg Studio has been appointed to work alongside consulting architects Cobe and the garden’s botany team to design the layouts, structures, and landscape features of the new glasshouse complex. Spanning 2,800 square metres across thirteen interconnected structures, the glasshouses will create twelve distinct climate zones, ranging from cold alpine environments to warm, humid tropical ones. Two of the structures rise to three storeys, and a series of elevated walkways will allow visitors to move through the plant canopies, bringing them into close contact with collections that include some of the finest and rarest of their kind in the world.

Working in close collaboration with the Gothenburg Botanic Garden team over many years, Harris Bugg Studio has shaped an approach that is informed by the garden’s scientific mission, its identity as a public institution, and its ambition to remain a world leader in species conservation, research, and education. The first phase of the new glasshouses is now complete, and the extraordinary process of relocating 10,000 individual plants into their new home is currently underway.

Collaboration

Project management: Västra Götaland Region’s Property Management department and Gothenburg Botanical Garden

Consulting architect: Cobe

Greenhouse design: Cobe 

Greenhouse construction: Peab Sverige AB