Designers announced for 16th International Garden Festival in Reford Gardens

The lucky designers have been selected for the 16th International Garden Festival at the historic Reford Gardens / Jardins de Métis in Quebec, Canada taking place on June 26-September 27, 2015. Set in the iconic Reford Gardens, the highly anticipated festival promotes dialogue between history and modernity and natural conservation through showcasing temporary and conceptual garden installations by landscape architects, architects, designers and artists worldwide.

For a major festival, competition was unquestionably high. The jury evaluated a total of 309 contemporary garden proposals by over 700 architects in 34 countries.

Scroll down to see the winning designs below.

SE MOUILLER (la belle échappée) by Groupe A / Annexe U [Jean-François Laroche, architect, Rémi Morency, architect and urbanist, Erick Rivard, architect & Maxime Rousseau, architect]
Québec (Québec) Canada.

Project summary: "The installation explores the discussion about invasive species and the delicate balance of ecosystems. Here plants will be kept in a kind of vise that visitors will be invited to enter. The plant will escape over the course of the summer. Loss of control? When what is beautiful becomes dangerous...the experience will be repeated as the garden invites visitors to engage physically with the garden. Gone is simple contemplation. The call to participate is also an invitation to interact and share in the common environment of the wetland. "Don your boots and get wet" offers a chance to discover a completely different space."

CARRÉ BLEU SUR FOND BLANC by o.k. [Kihan Kim, landscape architect & Ophélie Bouvet, landscape architect]
Paris, France

Project summary: "The idea for this garden was born from a chance discovery made under a hammock. Stubborn in their search of sun, flowers had pushed through the netting and pierced it with their bloom. They created a random pattern on the blank canvas of the hammock. This reinterpretation of a natural phenomenon will create a contemplative garden where the fabric will act as a filter that will be activated by the blooming plants. The resulting tapestry will be woven by the flowers each day of the Festival. The surface will vibrate with the confusion between the plants that are immersed or submerged."

AROUND-ABOUT by Talmon Biran architecture studio [Roy Talmon, architect & Noa Biran, architect]
Tel Aviv, Israel.

Project summary: "Three large mobile harrows are placed inside a gravel field. These instruments, whose design is inspired by traditional agricultural machinery, rake gravel in a circular manner. Here visitors will be active participants in the composition and the deconstruction of the garden. Unlike the Japanese Zen garden, which is designed to be seen from the outside, this garden will be viewed, created and experienced from the inside, through a joyful and playful activity. As visitors walk away from the roundabouts, their footsteps violate the orderly pattern of the gravel. Once they get back on the roundabouts and spin them, the garden returns to its ordered perfection."

I LIKE TO MOVE IT by DIX NEUF CENT QUATRE VINGT SIX Architecture [Mathilde Gaudemet, architect & Arthur Ozenne, architect]
Paris, France

Project summary: "In this garden, the visitor will face a seemingly wild meadow. Grasses and a few birch trees grow together against the backdrop of dense greenery. There seems to be little going on here. But the straight lines at ground level, punctuating the space, create a rhythm and attract the visitor’s attention. On approaching one turns around, scans, wonders and finally touches. That is when the trees begin to move. Visitors can slide the trees along their tracks and create their own garden. The banal becomes strange. Nature domesticated transforms the landscape into a garden. Trees, immobile and mute, are rootless and move as living beings. All due to human interaction." 

POPPLE by Meaghan Hunter, landscape architect & Suzy Melo, landscape architect
Winnipeg (Manitoba) Canada

Project summary: "In a wooded area, a large curtain of colorful metal disks dance in the wind to create a melody and a visual buzz, evoking the leaves of trembling aspen. This sensory experience seeks to highlight the simple beauty of the forest. Visitors will be encouraged to interact with the curtains and contribute to the movement of "leaves" that will move in the space. There is a dynamic in nature that remains invisible and this installation will invite people to explore and see what has always been there."

You can check out the 2014 installations here and here.