Casanova+Hernandez architects | L022_Appeltern Garden Festival

The garden has an exterior ring where the selection and combination of plants promotes a separate experience of the different sense. In the centre of the garden is located a small cubic space made of vegetation that invite the visitor to enter inside to have a concentrated perception of the five sense together in what it can be named the “senses cocktail”.

Three dimensional landscape: fusion of horizontal and vertical gardens

The garden is a combination of a two dimensional garden made by vegetation that grows on the floor surface with a three dimensional garden made by the vegetation that grows vertically creating green walls and even green ceilings.

Five strips of different kind of plants of different colours are associated to each of the senses. All together conform a dynamic three dimensional landscape, which produces a very different perception depending of the point of view.

The three dimensionality of the landscape makes the garden vibrant, always changing that wakes up the curiosity of the visitor, who is attracted to explore its interior.

Art piece: mix of sculpture and garden

The central cube of the “senses cocktail” is an sculptural object inspired on the spatial studies done by the Spanish sculptor Jorge Oteiza during the 50’s called “Empty Boxes”. In these works he modelled the emptiness inside the steel boxes by opening part of the six sides of the box to show its interior.

The “senses cocktail” uses the vegetation to create a virtual cubic space that shows its empty interior through open strips from where the visitor can enter inside.

When the visitor enters inside the cube he perceives the 5 elements that create the space but also the gaps between the green elements that frame the sky.

The visitor can stay indside the empty box or enjoy in slow motion the multiple perspectives of he green volume.

Hybrid garden: combination of nature and industry

The “senses cocktail” is an experimental garden that explores the collaboration between natural materials and industry. It emphasizes the use of the modern technology to create an innovative garden.

On one hand the structure of the central cubic element of 3x3x3 meters is designed as a single curved tube that is folded three-dimensionally over itself. This can be done in a short period of time, with an extraordinary precision and inside the budget thanks to the modern industrial technology based on robot machines.

The folded tube structure is protected with epoxy powdercoating and divided in pieces to facilitate its transportation and montage in the site. On the other hand the green walls that cover the vertical parts of the cube experiment with the Dutch green industry, which produces “prefabricated green elements” already grown and ready to use in order to make this landscape intervention possible in a short period of time.

The “Senses Cocktail” is based on the collaboration of the steel and green industry in order to create a hybrid garden, mix of nature and artifice.