Around About

Around About is a ‘dry Landscape’ installation inspired from the concept of Japanese Zen gardens. A set or large roundabouts is to be placed inside a field of gravel. These roundabouts, whose design is inspired from agricultural machinery, include tines bellow their bottom beam which rakes the gravel in circular patterns as the roundabout spins.

Winning Entry, 15th International Garden Festival, Jardin de Metis, Grand Metis, Quebec, Canada, 2015

2nd prize, Reznik award for architectural excellence, 2016

Client
Jardins de Métis (Reford Gardens)
Location
Grand Metis, Quebec, Canada
Size
240 Sqm
Status
Completed

The visitors are active participants in the composition of the garden and its constant rearrangement. In contrast to the typical Zen garden, which is usually planned to be seen from the outside of the garden, Around About is seen, created and experienced from the inside, through a joyful and playful activity.

The proposal acts on the tension between order and disorder

The entire garden works in harmony, as a mechanism whose components are in precise proportion and relation to one another. As visitors walk away from the roundabouts, their footsteps violate the orderly pattern of the gravel. Once they get back on the roundabouts and spin them, the garden returns to order.

Publications

2015, designboom.com - Talmon Biran architecture composes immersive, interactive zen garden in quebec

September 2015, divisare.com - Around About’ was one of the winning entries in the 2015 edition of the International Garden Festival at the Jardin de Metis, Quebec, Canada.