The 19th edition of the International Garden Festival opens

 

For its 19th edition, the International Garden Festival is having some fun. Fun for the designers – but mostly fun for visitors. The Festival continues its exploration of play with Playsages II – Go Outside and Play! Landscape architects, architects, artists and designers from across Canada and around the world responded to our call for proposals to imagine creative spaces.

Seven new projects offer imaginative spaces where families can congregate and play together all summer. Jump into a canoe to traverse a pond. Choose your own column for a photo op. Leap skyward above the walls of a corn maze. Ascend the vertical cliffs of a metallic Percé Rock. Take a spin on a forested carrousel. Caress the samara of the iconic maple. You can even make your own garden by assembling a lean-to of colourful sticks. Go outside and play – and have some fun!y responding to our growing distance and alienation from the natural world with a defiant invitation to re-think outdoor spaces. Go Outside and Play! is a call to action

We spend less time outdoors and when outside we often observe the natural world with an electronic device in our hands. We mask the sounds of the surrounding environment with ear buds. We distance ourselves from experiencing nature by cocooning ourselves in our isolation. How can we make change happen? These new installations will join the six playsages created for 2017 edition of the Festival to offer a vast playground of designed spaces.

The new gardens selected by the jury for the 2018 edition that are on display are:

aMAIZEing – Image Credit: Martin Bond

aMAIZEing by Marta Milà Pascual, architect & landscape architect and Marc Torrellas Arnedo, architect – Barcelona, Spain

L’origine de la colonne – Images Credit:Martin Bond

L’origine de la colonne by Josep Congost and Louis Sicard, architects and artists – Valencia, Spain

La ligne de 100 ans – Image Credit:Martin Bond

La ligne de 100 ans by Hatem+D [Étienne Bernier, architect, Marianne Charbonneau, architect, Mélanie Dereymez, intern in architecture, Théo Jarrand, intern in architecture and Steeven Bérubé, 3D artist] – Québec (Québec) Canada

Le rocher très percé – Photo credit: Martin Bond

Le rocher très percé by Humà Design [Stéphanie Cardinal, designer, Olivier Laplante-Goulet multidisciplinary designer and Lorelei L’Affeter, artiste] and Vincent Lemay, landscape architect – Montréal (Québec) Canada

Les hélicoptères -Image Credit: Martin Bond

Les hélicoptères by Carson Isenor, landscape designer and Anna Thomas, MLA candidate – Vancouver (British Columbia) Canada

Carousel by ISO [Nuala O’Donnell, intern architect, Maxwell Schnutgen, intern architect and Etienne Issa, architectural designer] – Vancouver (British Columbia) Canada

Assemble – Image Credit:Martin Bond

Assemble by Katie Strang, landscape designer, Christine Dewancker, artist and carpenter and Craig Van Ravens, architectural designer – Toronto (Ontario) Canada

Find out more about the International Garden Festival at internationalgardenfestival.com

About Damian Holmes 3401 Articles
Damian Holmes is the Founder and Editor of World Landscape Architecture (WLA). He is a registered landscape architect (AILA) working in international design practice in Australia. Damian founded WLA in 2007 to provide a website for landscape architects written by landscape architects. Connect on Linkedin at https://www.linkedin.com/in/damianholmes/