12. LE REFUGE IMMERGÉ

Just like a cloister, the gallery contains an open-air contemplative garden. This is a fertile haven in which visitors are met with a profusion of flourishing plants. Within this plant machine, it is possible for a process of re-oxygenation to be started up.

This garden shows, on the one hand, Man's ability to rectify mistakes of the past and thus to create something positive out of waste, by encouraging an environment favourable to our existence with the help of plants. On the other hand, it highlights the ability of plants to thrive afresh, even under difficult conditions, often with no need of a human helping hand. As if displaying "green intelligence", plants transform the matter for, the closer to the heart of the garden we get, the more refined the matter becomes. Through this "phytorecycling", plastic thus becomes part of a life cycle, just like plants and us humans. In amongst this green recovery we find a resource for limiting our own impact on nature.

For the garden's designers, this refuge is a contemplation, a vision of the Garden of the Coming Century, one that is necessary for our survival and representing fresh hope of the ties being restored between Plants and Man.

Maxime ARNOUX, Mathilde CHARÉE and Loïc ANTUNES, students

Michel AUDOUY, teacher

VERSAILLES NATIONAL SCHOOL OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE
FRANCE

 

"As a motivated and inquisitive designer, I am 100% committed to my profession. After literary A levels, I enrolled in the Institute of Applied Arts on a two-year higher education diploma in Spatial Design. I am currently in my final year at Versailles National School of Landscape where I am due to graduate in 2016. What interest me are projects bearing on the coastline and the challenges it faces such as tourism and the impact of rising water levels on our territorial practices. The notion of the road travelled often crops up in my work too, prompting me to consider the way an area or landscape is travelled through. After several assignments in private and landscape gardens alike, I am also attentive to smaller scales. Opportunities to work in Morocco and South Carolina have enabled me to continue learning about the different ways Landscape can be grasped, while gaining insight into a new culture and new flora. Whether for placements or personal pleasure, travel gives me ideas and inspiration and helps to open my mind up more for my profession as a designer. I also find creative fodder in other areas of life, such as film, set design, graphic design and fashion.”

 

"Everything began with a certain sense of creativity as a child, which would slowly kindle my interest in landscape. With this fascination for design having taken root, an initial educational opportunity presented itself. For four years I was immersed in the world of landscape projects on a course at Thuré Agricultural and Horticultural Vocational Sixth-Form College in the Vienne département, where I combined theory and practice and combined my studies with workers' placements; this intensive experience convinced me that there has to be a practical side to any sound theoretical basis, and vice-versa. The next three years saw me enrolling on an art course at the Raymond Loewy Sixth-Form College in the Applied Arts and Design Professions in the Creuse département, during which time I chose to continue my studies with a two-year higher education diploma in Spatial Design, after a refresher year. Since 2012 I have been living one of my greatest ambitions: studying at Versailles National School of Landscape for the DPLG landscaping qualification, to be able to practise the profession for which my enthusiasm knows no bounds!”

 

"Now a final-year student at Versailles National School of Landscape, it was in Albi, during my two-year higher-education diploma in landscape planning, that I properly immersed myself in the world of gardens for the first time. Inquisitive by nature, I feel spurred on to broaden my education by working, in parallel, on projects at territory-level. Music and film are particular hobbies of mine, and I enhance my pragmatic side with artistic fancies. I like to think that landscape and gardens are, first and foremost, a means of passing on. As a landscaper who never stops learning, I complement my studies by designing gardens for households, and helping out in associations. I spend some of my free time out in the field with the student club Chifoumi, developing collaborative projects aimed at giving urban wasteland enchanting makeovers. Chaumont-sur-Loire Garden Festival is an opportunity for me to put what I have learned into practice: a new stage before embarking on my career as a DPLG-qualified landscaper.”