Soltis Proof 502 Dresses Installations at the International Garden Festival

A can’t-miss event for garden lovers

The International Garden Festival is widely recognized as an absolute staple among all those with a passion for landscaping. Every year, over two dozen plots between 100 and 250 sqm in area — extending over part of the grounds at the Château of Chaumont-sur-Loire — are transformed into stunning tableaux on a specific theme. Then in the autumn, each temporary garden is dismantled, and redesigned with a new creative approach for the next year.
From 26 April until 6 November 2022, the 30th edition of the festival explores the notion of ‘Ideal Garden’. In total, some 200 applications have been submitted this year, all anonymous to ensure impartial evaluation by the Jury. The contest comes with a very specific list of requirements and rules covering a variety of criteria, including for instance public accessibility, height of vegetation growth, as well as an original design and immersive experience. In the end, only 24 applications are selected through a rigorous months-long process, which culminates in December. With the festival opening in April of the following year, teams lucky enough to be selected only have four months to complete their landscape design.
The contest is open to all: landscape designers, architects, industrial designers and artists from France and all around the globe. This year, the Lyon-based architecture practice Archigroup submitted a conceptual and artistic proposal, which was accepted by the Jury.
 

The ‘Grenade’ Garden

Inspired by the theme of the ‘Ideal Garden’, Archigroup’s team decided to go back to one of the basics for every garden — water.

‘A garden needs water, it’s the very essence of life. Our vision really developed around this reflection on water, on how to conserve it and use it sensibly, and the starting point was an ancient technique that is has been rehabilitated today: the use of oyas,’ says Aymeric Dufour, landscape designer for Archigroup.
Oyas are a kind of terracotta pots that are buried in the soil around plants and then filled with water. Their porous walls let the humidity seep out gently into the ground, providing a continuous supply of water. It is an economical watering technique designed to reduce water wastage, which has been in use for centuries. ‘Compared with standard surface irrigation, this process uses 50 to 70% less water because, unlike with surface irrigation, the water evaporates less and plants have more time to capture it as it is supplied more regularly and adequately,’ explains Aymeric Dufour.

For their project, Archigroup chose to develop the concept on a larger scale and create giant oyas half-buried in the ground so the upper part remains visible. The installation is intended as an educational opportunity for visitors and a chance to raise awareness of a system that is usually concealed underground. While traditional oyas are usually filled manually, the firm topped each installation with a large metal structure to achieve complete autonomy. The giant petals covered with fabric by Serge Ferrari Group work as a clever rainwater collection system, allowing oyas to refill without any human intervention. The overall design is unmistakably floral in inspiration. The idea was for the pot, metal structure and fabric to fuse together into a shape evocative of a juicy, water-filled fruit: the pomegranate — grenade in French, hence the name of the garden.

Pomegranates wrapped in Soltis Proof 502

‘Our inspiration was very natural. As we were working on the aesthetic concept, we came up with the idea of combining the structure and its use into the shape of a pomegranate,’ comments Aymeric Dufour.
Watertightness and durability were critical considerations in the choice of Serge Ferrari’s Soltis Proof 502 for the project. But aside from everything else, the product’s colour and stability were decisive. A bright red tone was essential to reproduce the aspect of the Oriental fruit.
‘We immediately thought of using textile for this project. Then the question quickly came up of how to achieve the desired visual result, because this is not a standard shape. As it turns out, shading fabrics really are the perfect solution for collecting rainwater and delivering the kind of flexibility that is needed to create the shape we envisioned. Colour and long-term stability were also very important factors, because the structures were going to be exposed to UV rays for a long period of time.’
To manufacture the fabric and metal structure, Archigroup sought the experience of Bâches Matussière, a member of Serge Ferrari’s Expert network based in Lempdes, central France. The company was able to design a sort of bespoke zipper envelope to cover the metal framework of the petals with minimal creasing. In total, 100 sqm of Soltis Proof 502 in Poppy were needed to wrap the metal pomegranates.