Théâtre de Verdure
KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes with Ruggero Agnolutto, Rui Alves, Rebecca Billi and Sara Cálem)
Baldios (Samuel Alcobia, Pedro Gusmão, Joana Marques e Catarina Raposo)
Jardins de la Paix 2018, Le Quesnoy, France; Restricted Competition, completion 2019
The garden is located at the end of a 600m long axis, which was used as a firing range in between wars. At the far end of this axis, an old concrete building (remnant of the former shooting range) is lodged in the interior of a recently created small island surrounded by water canals. Next to the island there is another landmass shaped as an amphitheatre facing the concrete building.
Our proposal unites the two landforms on a single island and erects an earth mound along its limits that conceals and protects the interior space. This earthwork, clearly artificial, generates an elongated crater where the visitor is immersed. Looking from the outside, one only glimpses the slopes of the mounds and the meadow covering it. The building itself appears as a solid concrete monolith, not revealing its interior. By contrast, the inner slopes are covered with a vigorous biodiversity of herbaceous, bulbs and ferns.
The earthworks are generated through the shaping of the existing volume without any new soil required. The ridge of the slope is elevated to 300cm above the water level (just 60cm above the currently highest elevation). The crest is aligned with the interior of the building, which moulds and merges all the elements together in a single identity facing inwards. The interior slope enters inside the building and builds up an earth ramp, which presents itself to an audience and serves as support for the vegetation. This military artefact will be colonized by the vegetation common to the native oak Quercus petraea forest, mostly by the dense understory, which over time will occupy all corners of the building.
At the opposite end of the existing building we propose to shape a circular platform elevated at 66cm above the water level (same level as most of the park). The square’s stone surface stands as a belvedere from where we observe the Diorama. This platform is also the end of great axis that begins near the Bastion Vert, 600 meters to the southeast. The proposal recovers the path alignment, extending it to the Théâtre de Verdure crossing over the canal and through the earth mound. This is the only perspective from the outside where one can the observe richness and the biodiversity existing inside the garden.
In the centre of the crater, a ramp descends gently until it finds the water level. This surface will display the rise and fall of the water level throughout the year and sets to grow a different ecology. The pre-existing water canal, between the two islands, remains as a concrete precast water tunnel that opens in the centre of the island and floods the central axis throughout the seasons.
KWY.studio (Ricardo Gomes with Ruggero Agnolutto, Rui Alves, Rebecca Billi and Sara Cálem)
Baldios (Samuel Alcobia, Pedro Gusmão, Joana Marques e Catarina Raposo)
Jardins de la Paix 2018, Le Quesnoy, France; Restricted Competition, completion 2019
The garden is located at the end of a 600m long axis, which was used as a firing range in between wars. At the far end of this axis, an old concrete building (remnant of the former shooting range) is lodged in the interior of a recently created small island surrounded by water canals. Next to the island there is another landmass shaped as an amphitheatre facing the concrete building.
Our proposal unites the two landforms on a single island and erects an earth mound along its limits that conceals and protects the interior space. This earthwork, clearly artificial, generates an elongated crater where the visitor is immersed. Looking from the outside, one only glimpses the slopes of the mounds and the meadow covering it. The building itself appears as a solid concrete monolith, not revealing its interior. By contrast, the inner slopes are covered with a vigorous biodiversity of herbaceous, bulbs and ferns.
The earthworks are generated through the shaping of the existing volume without any new soil required. The ridge of the slope is elevated to 300cm above the water level (just 60cm above the currently highest elevation). The crest is aligned with the interior of the building, which moulds and merges all the elements together in a single identity facing inwards. The interior slope enters inside the building and builds up an earth ramp, which presents itself to an audience and serves as support for the vegetation. This military artefact will be colonized by the vegetation common to the native oak Quercus petraea forest, mostly by the dense understory, which over time will occupy all corners of the building.
At the opposite end of the existing building we propose to shape a circular platform elevated at 66cm above the water level (same level as most of the park). The square’s stone surface stands as a belvedere from where we observe the Diorama. This platform is also the end of great axis that begins near the Bastion Vert, 600 meters to the southeast. The proposal recovers the path alignment, extending it to the Théâtre de Verdure crossing over the canal and through the earth mound. This is the only perspective from the outside where one can the observe richness and the biodiversity existing inside the garden.
In the centre of the crater, a ramp descends gently until it finds the water level. This surface will display the rise and fall of the water level throughout the year and sets to grow a different ecology. The pre-existing water canal, between the two islands, remains as a concrete precast water tunnel that opens in the centre of the island and floods the central axis throughout the seasons.
