Bucheon Lake Botanical Garden 'Supia' (부천호수식물원 수피아)

Sangdong Lake Park (상동호수공원), opened on 31 March 2003 over about 18 hectares, is the largest man-made park in Bucheon: its lake of some 23,000 m², one to three metres deep, is surrounded by green space covering nearly two thirds of the site, and Korean Wikipedia credits it with more than 1.8 million visitors a year. It was here that the city decided to build an exhibition greenhouse.

On 11 February 2021 the daily Seoul Shinmun reported the city's announcement: a "themed botanical garden of Sangdong Lake Park", an elliptical dome greenhouse building of 3,000 m² with a budget of 7.2 billion won, then due for completion in May 2021. The scheme counted seven planting zones, a café, rest areas and a suspended walkway, with over 300 species and 32,000 plants, baobabs and palms foremost among them.

The opening came nearly a year after the announced completion date, under the name Supia: a trial period, free with booking, ran from 26 March to 31 May 2022, before the official, paying opening on 2 June 2022, according to the Naeil newspaper. The Gyeonggi provincial magazine presented it in April 2024 under the slogan "rain or snow, we always go picnicking in the forest"; in March 2026 the Maeil Shinmun described it with late openings on Fridays and Saturdays.

The Seoul Shinmun, reporting the city's plans, describes a greenhouse building with an elliptical dome structure whose forms, inspired by a turtle and a bird's nest, refer to the park's lake and woodland. The long axis measures 73.6 m, the short axis 43.7 m, and the height varies from 8 to 18 m. In 2025 the Kyunghyang daily calls it a "dome-shaped glass greenhouse" and mentions its glass ceiling.

The floor area is 2,969 m² (2,969.31 m² according to the Kyunghyang), on two levels. The ground floor holds the themed gardens and a café; upstairs, a raised walkway, the skywalk, takes in the whole greenhouse at a glance, with terrace-like rest areas alongside. The walls of the rest lounge and the book café are of clear glass. A separate themed greenhouse, kept for special programmes and temporary shows, and a wheelchair lift complete the facilities.

The cost announced in 2021 was 7.2 billion won.

The 2021 programme set out seven zones: a foliage garden (56 species, including rubber figs), a flowering-tree garden (59 species, including Indian lilac and flamboyant), a palm and aquatic garden (49 species, including royal palm and Canary Island palm), a fragrance garden (23 species, including night jasmine and ylang-ylang), a fern garden (25 species), a baobab hill (35 species, including baobabs and bougainvilleas) and a tropical orchard (55 species, including ornamental bananas and Malay apples).

At the opening, the 2022 articles describe eight zones and an inventory of 430 species and 28,000 plants, figures repeated in 2024 and 2026; a carnivorous-plant hall and an aquatic garden are among the zones named. The plants singled out by the press are the original rubber fig (원종고무나무), the Canary Island palm and the olive tree; the Kyunghyang stresses the recreated rainforest atmosphere. The figures thus differ between the project (300 species, 32,000 plants) and the finished garden (430 species, 28,000 plants).

Supia lies in Sangdong Lake Park, west of Bucheon's centre, which the Maeil Shinmun lists among the stops of a day out along metro line 7; the neighbouring bus stops carry the names of Samsan Gymnasium station and the park. A 750 m loop circles the lake, enlivened by fountains; a visit to the greenhouse combines with that walk and a pause in the book café. The late openings on Fridays and Saturdays, from March to November, change the mood under the dome. The garden closes on Mondays (or the following day when Monday is a public holiday), on 1 January and on the days of Seollal and Chuseok; advance booking is possible through the city's reservation system. The city's other glasshouse, Bucheon Botanical Garden, is six kilometres to the east.