2016 edition - Gardens from the coming century

04. Explosive nature

published at 11/09/2017

Thrown over fencing, deposited in cracks or sprinkled directly onto the soil without being planted, seed bombs are helping our environment to get back to nature. An age-old practice of Japanese farming, and adopted by guerilla gardening, these seed bombs protect the seeds until they find just the right conditions for germinating.

PRIZE FOR DESIGN

Awarded on the 1st of July 2016 by a jury of professionals renowned in the world of garden art

Explosive nature, Festival International des Jardins, 2016 - © Éric Sander

This garden of the centuries to come is the fruit of the genius of nature, its ability to multiply, divide and organise itself in harmony. Lending fresh interpretation to this seed bomb technique, this garden has a life of its own: taking shape and developing entirely of its own accord, surviving where it is least expected and populating areas that look barren, cracks, wasteland or roofing for example.

Our curiosity is piqued by discreet plants pushing out of the duckboard cracks. It is an impetuous structure, therefore, that beckons us into the garden. Teeming with vegetation and seed bombs, it looms up and propels us towards spaces completely overgrown with plants.

The fruit of this bombing creates a real garden, one rich in contrasts and biodiversity. The balls of seeds continue to germinate, then cracks begin to appear, releasing young shoots. The garden and its structure change over time. Plants creep up and cover the structure, flourishing while the duckboard fades into the background. The garden showcases and glorifies these self-sufficient plants, ruderals that grow in often extreme conditions with no need of our assistance.

So prepare yourselves for a journey through this Explosive nature.

DESIGNERS

Marguerite RIBSTEIN, DPLG landscaper, and Grégory CAZEAUX, DPLG architect and landscaper
FRANCE

Born in 1986, Marguerite Ribstein grew up in Alsace. After a foundation course in literature and studies in geography, she graduated as a DPLG-qualified landscaper from Versailles School of Landscape in 2010. She then cultivated her professional sensibilities at a landscape firm first in Strasbourg then Lyon. Between projects bearing on transport (tram, cycle path networks), eco-districts and concerted development zones (ZAC), she has built up a good working method and sound knowledge of public procurement contracts. At the same time, she has developed her know-how through a variety of private projects, workshops and competitions. Today she develops her projects as a freelance landscaper. Working across households' gardens and public or corporate spaces, residential districts and urban projects alike, she fosters ties between these different scales. Each project is a narrative, with a story to tell that inspires its practitioners; she strives to design sustainable, singular projects in which nature sets to work in close liaison with people. Her work takes her all over France, mainly in the Rhône-Alpes and Alsace regions, but also abroad. The involvement of the project's stakeholders is important to her, as she was able to experience during a range of assignments in France as well as South Africa and Tanzania (Zanzibar).

Born in Bordeaux in 1977, Grégory Cazeaux graduated as a DPLG-qualified architect from Nantes School of Architecture. He made his debut working on architectural and urban programmes in several Paris- and Strasbourg-based firms. He then branched out, working in a landscape firm: he has taken part in all sorts of national projects to do with public spaces, urban parkland or developments associated with the creation of tramways and BRT. Without abandoning the architectural dimension, he has, almost instinctively, veered towards landscape and public space planning, with the ambition of making his expertise and energy available to the city and his community. Set up as a freelancer in Lyon today, he has several projects on the go in France and abroad. He partners up with various professionals at regular intervals for competitions, urban studies, gardens, public spaces and architectural projects. In his current undertakings he strives to combine architecture, urban planning and landscape - three intricately linked disciplines - to design projects all the richer for it. For him, the roots of a practice at the service of users and their city lie in the relationship between these three dimensions.

DESIGNERS

GARDEN SPONSORED BY

THE GARDEN'S PLANTS

garden created with support from