France

      From the jury statement: Folds works above all as sculpture-play-scape. While the design tools are simple, they offer a layered complexity within this simplicity, so as to cater for various uses. The play of shapes, levels and morphology makes it interesting to the various age groups of the nearby kindergarten as well as children from the area. The project is about the play between two materials which reflects geological processes that formed the Jura Mountains. In this way it establishes a unique and strong visual language and an engaging playground. On a larger scale it enriches the well-known modernist design approach of the surrounding residential area; the contrast between the orthogonal housing and more nature-inspired landscape forms.
      Jury statement: This transformation of an airport into landscape works to balance the extreme climate, the design interlocks three scales: geographical, urban and local. The design meshes precisely formulated climatic and poetic goals in an inextricable way. The reflections of the office are at once complex and simple, of enormous depth, yet with childlike wonder. The design works well on all scales, from the park as a whole to a pedestrian perspective. The jury recognized the relaxed design language of the park that makes it look undetermined, as if it can change at any point. The design shows a powerful mix of a personal design language which doesn’t celebrate itself, but serves the adventures of the visitor through differentiated landscapes, climatic spaces and atmospheres.
      Visitors come to museums to see works of art, science or remains of the past, in order to get inspired, filled with new knowledge or to reshape the margins of their understanding. Catherine Mosbach seized the opportunity to offer a landscape that engages this mindset and is able to playfully explain the hidden stories this landscape inhabits. This is indeed a museum-park where visitors can observe what landscape has to say about itself and the traces of human activity on the site. One can move about as one would at an exhibition; passing through an array of different objects, each expressing its own statement ... Catherine Mosbach revealed the layers of the site's memory with all its features and debris, and translated them into a language common to the building and its programme. Whether you like its appearance or not, the Louvre Lens project is undoubtedly a strong conceptual landscape that reaches beyond practice by the book.
      Ilex landscape architects shared with us new photos of Parc des Iles, so we are bringing it back in focus. Enjoy!