The 90zero km/h Landscape project is articulated around the idea of cinetic perception and proposes the developpement of a landscape-parc englobing the whole site and in which landscape and architecture are intimately united. The visitor to the Reford Gardens often travels several hundred kilometers before reaching his destination. He speeds trough the countryside, the regional countryside...large scale. Cut off inside his machine, his only contact with the outside world is visual. He reduces his speed, stops the car and slowly enters the Reford Gardens thus contemplating a much smaller scale landscape. Through this movement of deceleration : passing from large scale to small, passing from high speed to slow, the visitors space perception shifts radically. The mainly visual perception provoqued by the gradually more define, gradually more detailed, gradually more whole.
90 km/h zone - anamorphous screen
An intensely dense clump of trees as a primary filter between the road and the site. On this hazy and undefined background, created by the peripheral vision of the rapidly moving visitor, a picture forms, freezes for an instant and then melts. This anamorphous image that unfolds within the landscape works as a road sign announcing the Gardens.
15 km/h zone - deceleration screen
From the entrance, a new route, traced along the route of the old national road, accompanies the visitor to the parking area. The roads which hide from view the stream near the entrance. Are relocated so as to put the stream back in its place as a defining element in the scale of the site. The triangular area created by the tracing of the new route and the Chemin du Roi is replaced in certain places and thinned in others, forming strips of trees that gradually become further and further apart, making a second access filter to the site, more permeable than the first.
5 km/h zone - interpretation screen
The program for the reception pavilion unfolds along the whole of the site following the Chemin du Roi and becomes an interpretation screen. Slowly the visitor follows this screen along a wooden boardwalk. His lateral vision captures the fixed, real or virtual images that punctuated the screen like windows looking over the other gardens. Linear, the route of the interpretation screen going west, leads to a belvedere over the river Metis.
Sitting at the meeting point of the stream and the screen, the pavilion regroups tourist facilities. Lying within an existing wooded area, large trees pierce through its terraces reinforcing the bind between landscape and architecture.
Once through the entrance, a path hugging the interpretation screen, acts as uniting axe by articulating the relationship between the Historical Garden, the Indigenous Garden and the Events Garden. At the junction of each of the loop forming paths, different interpretation point specific to each garden unit can be consulted. The Historical Garden remains practically untouched, whereas the route from the new pavilion leading to the Reford Villa is reaffirmed along its linear layout. The Events Garden, a series of ephemeral gardens renewed every year, sits at the eastern extremity of the site and between the two in the center, the Indigenous Garden offers a dialogue with the natural environment.
(From competitor's text)
(Unofficial automated translation)
This proposal presents an ingenious and persuasive project that carries a strong landscape concept where the qualification of the space is not only through a form but also, and more, through meaning. This concept is the result of a disciplined intervention, restricted in formal gestures, and which only focuses on the essential by considering few but significant elements that contribute to strongly structure the site.
It is a project of very sensitive ideas that invents a notion of time, a notion that leads to a concept of landscape that is quite relevant. The result is a strong contemporary project and a concept of park-landscape of great maturity which proposes a discourse on the times of contemplation, from landscape to garden, and puts the emphasis on the kinesthetic experience of the visitor.
The division of the landscape entities is based on a judicious recognition of the history of the site and the characteristics of the place, while being in line with the universal history of the art of gardens. This understanding of the site is illustrated, among other things, by the clearing and enhancement of the stream, the backbone of the historic garden.
The feasibility of certain devices will have to be validated, including the positioning of the entrance to the site at the eastern end as well as the technological solutions constituting the interpretation screen. In addition, the development of the Conservatory would benefit from a more organic approach.
In addition to presenting an interesting solution for the development of the Festival site, this proposal demonstrates a profound work of identity for the site. It also has the audacity to make certain choices while being a very respectful project that preserves the jewel of the site: the historic gardens. In this regard, the proposed design builds a fine relationship and establishes a subtle hierarchy between the wooded area adjacent to Route 132 (the first nature) and the historic gardens area (the third nature).
(From jury report)
(Unofficial automated translation)
64 scanned / 18 viewable
- Rendering of Digital Model
- Photograph of Model
- Presentation Panel
- Presentation Panel
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- Rendering of Digital Model
- Rendering of Digital Model
