This garden is based on the notion of a bubble that wafts us away into a contemplative universe, one conducive to thought and the innermost workings of the imagination (“being in your own bubble”). The bubble evokes a world apart – the world inhabited by the autistic, perhaps, or that of child dreamers, fledgling poets whose thoughts fly out through the classroom window. The garden is a bubble of greenery, nature and tranquillity, conducive to contemplation in the heart of the city’s frenetic bustle.
Let’s follow in the footsteps of the Marquis de Girardin, who created the Ermenonville gardens in 1766, and of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. This garden takes the “garden experienced” as its theme, a garden within which observation and discovery of nature, physical sensations and a direct relationship with the real world free the visitor and let him or her experience the “feeling of existence” so dear to Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It is here, in the present moment, that daydreams and thoughts are born, develop and rise aloft.
In the 18th century, such English landscape gardeners as Capability Brown called the regular gardens of the Renaissance into question and set about inventing new spaces in which walkers are subjected to a wide range of sensations, where the diversity of routes and colours, succession of scenes and variation of levels seek both to move and to surprise visitors, in order to stimulate imagination and reflection
So let’s sit ourselves down, observe, listen to the birds singing, enjoy the flowers’ iridescent colours and let dreams and thoughts overpower us, uplift us and give us back our lost spontaneity
DESIGNERS
Delphine ESTERLINGOT, landscaper, and Hervé PAILLOT, interior architect
FRANCE
Delphine Esterlingot and Hervé Paillot live in Caen, Normandy, and work at L’Atelier Margueritte, the agency they set up in 2011. Together, they carry out architectural and garden projects for private individuals. In their work, they seek to bring internal and external into dialogue, producing truly satisfying living spaces where construction fits unobtrusively into its environment.
Garden designer Delphine Esterlingot graduated from Versailles’ National Higher School of Landscape. She has always been a nature lover and observer. After qualifying in horticulture, she naturally enough turned to the study of the environment and ecology, and went on to work for design firms and project-management companies. In 2013, when she first started working with Hervé Paillot, she enrolled at Versailles’ School of Landscape in order to develop project-management and landscape-design skills. Since then, she has been creating gardens where poetry, living beings and a relationship with the site are all essential components. She is also interested in the ecological maintenance and management of the areas she creates, and helps her clients ensure the growth and vibrancy of their gardens.
A graduate of Lille’s Higher School of Fine Arts, interior architect Hervé Paillot spent 25 years working as project manager at various architectural agencies, mostly in Bordeaux, and contributed to such high-prestige projects as the renovation of the Orangerie Museum in Paris. In his personal work, he adopts an approach that takes him from interior to exterior, incorporating the complexity of individual housing, which calls for consideration of privacy, practicality, space, dimensions and light, as well as the right relationship with the outside world… His work, initially focused on small-scale projects, makes user-friendly housing central to his endeavours.
