Concept
The main idea of the project is the synthesis of form and content of the Insectarium. It is neither a noisy architecture nor an abstract container. Combining architecture with nature, the Insectarium is a true biotope in which insects, plants and people meet and engage with each other.
The Insectarium is authentic. Nature, architecture and museography merge into one body. They are mutually connected in the service of the visitor's concrete and individual experience.
The Insectarium is an organism. As such, it has a metabolism of its own that not only allows plants and insects to develop under the expert care of the staff, but also makes it possible for visitors to be transformed during their stay.
The Insectarium is a landscape. A large field of trees continues the existing larch grove on the site. It is a natural extension of the Botanical Garden's landscape collection: Rose Garden. Chinese Garden, Japanese Garden... From the outside, walkers perceive a landscape made up of vegetation and relatively low roofs that gradually rise to reach the perceptible edge of the larch trees. The planted framework of pruned trees constitutes a second roof line floating homogeneously above nature.
The Insectarium is architecture. As such, it is complementary to the landscape and the processes it contains. It forms a functional and spatial unity with the latter. This is how it takes its specific form. The intervention is a composition of modest built elements integrated into the form of the classical garden and maintaining a permeability with nature.
The Insectarium is an experiment. In this, it does not only exhibit but interacts with its visitors. Architecture and scenography are one. It is not about decor but about real experience: tactility, smell and the bioclimatic effects of the building materials used on the one hand, the different rooms with their specific characters on the other.
The Insectarium is a journey. Its layout develops from a series of stations: reset, perceptual spaces, head-to-head space, immersive space and creative workshops. The programmatic specificity of each station is expressed in its built form. In the series of this sequence of experiential spaces, the visit becomes imprinted in the visitor's memory: the Insectarium as a mnemonic body.
(Competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
STAGE 2:
The proposal of this team takes its origin in the scenographic and museological concept and in the site of the insectarium. By suggesting a circuit that takes the visitor underground and underwater, apnea at the surface, the concept creates a true house of the insect, where the insect is king and the visitor a guest. The concept proposes a long succession of experiences, along an imposed and strongly scenographic circuit:
- The project is defined by the intention more than by its less convincing architecture, some of whose forms are anecdotal.
- The jury recognizes the novelty of the "biophilic" experience; the linear sequence, however, may detract from the quality of immersion and the flexibility of renewal.
- The integration of the project into the Botanical Garden demonstrates a sensitive understanding of the site; a transparent architecture and continuity of the Aquatic Garden.
- The use of "Pisé", an earthen wall, to structure the different immersive rooms, reinforces the scenographic concept and the vocation of the site; the jury wonders about the feasibility of this technique in Montreal's climate and the need to control the humidity of certain environments.
- The concept as a whole proposes a fine reflection and an innovative response to the notion of the genetic code of the program and the insectarium, which contributes to creating the desired immersive experience.
- The proposal demonstrates that the team has the sensitivity and the scenographic and museum experience to develop an innovative and unique insectarium, as desired.
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
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