Never-ending Story

Like a metaphor, this garden creates the experience of an evolution. On the plot, five walls will be raised on a blank ground to show the cycles of development. From fungi to pioneer plants, visitors walk or pause in these spaces of mutation and decomposition. The final state disregards the walls, which have collapsed, while the plants take control of this new ground, and a feeling of relief arises on emerging from these laborious stages.

This project offers a reflection on the temporality of the garden and an idea of how to approach its design. At the outset, then, these stages, which resemble natural successions, are staged. Positioning themselves as “process accelerators”, the designers propose methods of amplification that will create an experience whose aim is to synthesise and rethink the life cycle of plants through an everyday forest story or situation, one that any walker in any wood might experience.

From blank ground to pioneer shoots, this project calls for a new cyclical temporality to be integrated into the art of the garden: a never-ending story.

Status

Built

Location

Grand-Métis (Quebec) G0J 1Z0

Client

Les Jardins de Métis

Team

atelier eem + Estelle Nicod + Héloïse Blanzat

Date

2012–2016

Photography

© atelier eem