Technology helps build giant flower basket in Tiananmen Square for national holiday

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Every year, the gardening artwork in Tiananmen Square is a must-see in Beijing during China's National Day Holiday. And there’s no exception this year.

Hundreds of thousands of tourists have been impressed with a giant flower basket, which is 17 meters high and 50 meters wide, since it was exhibited on Tiananmen Square in late September.

Over 300 flowers from 19 different varieties are displayed in the basket, mostly artificial. The biggest flower is a peony, the national flower of China. It's three meters wide and weighs 300 kilograms!

The total flower basket weighs 60 tons, since the flowers are made of steel so that they are firm enough to handle strong winds.

"We use water-proof cloth to make the flowers, something like what we use for a raincoat. We'll also spray fire retardants,” said Li Haibo, manager of the flowers' production.

Even 3D scanning technology was involved to ensure precision and accuracy.

"We used 3D technology to scan real flowers, and made the correct coordinates for each stem. Once the stems were made, we used GPS to locate each end to set their positions,” he said.

About 150 people, 30 trucks, and four cranes are involved in the decoration. It took the makers half a month to produce the flowers before installation.

The basket will be here in the square until late October.