As part of the project for the Expo Cultural Park in Shanghai, DMAA won an architecture competition for the realisation of a series of greenhouses that are being built on the city's former Expo site. The decision of the city authorities to transform such a large, centrally located reserve of land into a high quality recreational zone offers clear proof of the global trend towards the more intensive greening of core urban areas. One of the conditions of the competition was the retention of a former factory building that is used, in DMAA's proposal, as a distribution zone for the complex, which contains greenhouses with a range of different vegetations and climates, a visitors' centre and numerous restaurants and other spaces for relaxation with a total usable area of 41,000sqm.