Qualla: Olympic Forest Park

Olympic Forest Park: Introduction

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 螺钉, CC BY-SA 4.0. The trees in Olympic Forest Park absorb roughly 3,962 metric tons of carbon dioxide every year, the equivalent of removing 777 cars from the road. That single statistic captures the ambition behind this enormous man-made landscape at the northern terminus of Beijing's central axis, the same line that runs south through the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. Designed by the American landscape architecture firm Sasaki and implemented by the Tsinghua Landscape Design Institute for the 2008 Summer Olympics, the park does what few Olympic legacies manage: it serves its city more usefully now than it did during the games that created it.

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Image: 螺钉 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olympic Forest Park: Two Gardens, One Bridge

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 颜邯, CC BY-SA 4.0. The park splits into two halves divided by the North Fifth Ring Road. The Southern Garden, oval in shape, centers on Aohai Lake, where small islands connected by bridges create a landscape that feels more like a traditional Chinese garden than a modern urban park. The Northern Ga...

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Image: 颜邯 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olympic Forest Park: Water Reclaimed, Energy Generated

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 螺钉, CC BY-SA 4.0. Olympic Forest Park runs on reclaimed water. The park decreased Beijing's annual consumption of potable water by 950,000 cubic meters, comparable to 380 Olympic-sized swimming pools, by using treated effluent from the Qinghe Waste Water Treatment Plant for irrigation and to recha...

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Image: 螺钉 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olympic Forest Park: A Park That Teaches

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Hat600, CC BY-SA 4.0. In 2011, roughly 2,000 elementary school children from schools within two kilometers of the park used it as an outdoor classroom. Surveys of 373 visitors found that 96 percent reported the park had drastically improved their quality of life, citing recreation and exercise opportu...

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Image: Hat600 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Olympic Forest Park: The View from the Axis

Sat, 14 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit 颜邯, CC BY-SA 4.0. From Yangshan Mountain in the Northern Garden, the view south reveals the full extent of Beijing's Olympic legacy: the Bird's Nest Stadium, the Water Cube, and the Olympic Tower line up along the central axis, their forms becoming progressively smaller as the eye follows the line...

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Image: 颜邯 | CC BY-SA 4.0