The moss bathroom rug finally available!

Imagine getting out of your bath or shower and delicately setting foot on a moss rug. Now imagine the water running down your legs and watering that unique carpet. There is an obvious natural cycle there: the rug “Larosé” by LA CHANH NGUYEN collects the water while you enjoy a soft contact with this flora, which is reputed for its ideal massage of the acupuncture points situated on the sole of the foot.

“Larosée” is an ecologic and live rug: the moss composing it evolves through time on a base made of recycled latex. The moss likes shadow and humidity and stays green throughout several months. The air cells (moss) form (of the) a carpet which shape and color might vary (depending under which tree they have been collected). The edges are shaped like a wave in order to allow several rugs to fit together to cover the surface you desire.

Beyond its original aesthetics “Larosée” is a subtle invitation to reflect on the importance of ecological challenges: water is a vital element which was thought to be an endless resource, free and pure, but nowadays everyone is aware that access to water, its quality and a moderate consumption are among the key challenges of the future.

Here you are the base of the moss rug: made in vegetal recycled latex, nice anthracite grey that can accommodate everywhere, absorbs water and humidity. The outline with its wavy shape, allows the rugs to be stackable like a puzzle, so in case you’d wish making a larger rug or doing a vegetal pathway, it’s possible.

As many customers have asked for it, we now propose to only buy the base. This way you can aggregate the mosses yourself or others substances of your choice (preferably vegetals but the creativity is about liberty!)

The window of the future: an Active Glass from Philips.

The latest ‘Daylight’ concept by Philips is really a massive monitor resembling a real world window with a variety of customizable, on demand “scenery”: it's called Active-Glass, basically an “In-Air” Touch Interface using Glass as the display area.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4lRlp61jMpY

‘Daylight’ is considered the hotel scenario for the future, this is how Philips describes it [...] "Imagine what it would be like if your hotel was not just a temporary roof over your head, but a journey of the senses. Imagine being able to stimulate your senses with sound, light and imagery, day and night. Imagine a room whose very uniqueness leaves you refreshed, energized and ready for the new day.."

http://elitechoice.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/ph.jpg

The company’s announced the product is still at least ten years away from production.

Zurich: a very special museum.

The Tree Museum opened outside of Zurich in Rapperswil-Jona, Switzerland, showcasing an incredible collection of 2,000 different species of trees. Designed and built by Swiss landscape architect Enzo Enea with the help ofOppenheim Architecture + Design (OAD), who designed Enzo Enea’s new headquarters, the museum and the sustainably-built headquarters are located on the grounds of a 14th Century monastery and displays Enea’s personal collection of trees, which he has gathered over the past 17 years.

The innovation of Enea's approach is not just in creating a museum made of trees but in changing the common relation between buildings and its sorrounding landscapd areas. Infact, the headquarters are designed to act as the perfect backdrop to showcase the trees, exactly 2,000 trees on 2.5 acres, with a special installation of about 50 species personally curated by Enea from around the world. Trees are highlighted against sandstone wall backdrops and include 22 different varieties ranging from Taxus baccata to English yew, Pinus sylvestris, and Scotch pine. Enea has collected these trees over the last 17 years during various projects when trees had to be removed from the site. So instead of getting rid of them, he kept them and now has his own special museum, where visitors can view hundreds of trees for a reasonable fee.

http://inhabitat.com/2010/06/15/tree-museum-with-a-collection-of-2000-trees-opens-in-switzerland/

Jardin plume: the quintessence of sensual gardens.

[...] "Sylvie and Patrick Quibel are hortics who built the garden to promote their nursery. Now the nursery funds the garden, and the garden, JardinPlume, has been voted Garden of the Year by Those That Know.

It is on flat ground in the middle of farm land in Normandy. The Quibels based the design on the principles used at Vaux le Vicomte by Le Notre. There are grand allées, formal hedging and tightly clipped parterres. The house is raised above the land, and extra land is ‘borrowed’ by carrying the eye seamlessly into countryside beyond. There is a potager as purely ornamental as Marie Antoinette’s, a pool to reflect the heavens, and secluded spots for indulgent reverie. So far so déjà vue, but what makes the garden modern is the way all this is done."

[...] "It is this mixture of formal and natural, control and laissée faire, old fashioned structure and twenty-first century planting that makes this garden special. It is a very sensual garden, crammed full of colours, scents and movement, and the French are very sensual about their plants. Nursery catalogues talk of finding the plants that have ‘seduced’ you in the gardens, and to overhear the eager replies to Patrick’s question ‘Do you want it?’ (vous le voulez?) in the nursery, you can see why."

http://www.gardenvisit.com/blog/2009/10/11/please-visit-the-jardin-plume-before-it-becomes-over-copied/

http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/le_jardin_plume#

At Jardins,Jardin 2010 grass is running everywhere: new interpretation of green roofs and vertical gardens.

http://www.jardinsjardin.com/

Christian Fournet for Jardins, Jardin 2010.

Christian Fournet, a Paris-based landscape designer, is the author of this garden for Jardins, Jardin 2010. Its works has always been characterized by formal elegance and attention: though conceptual thinking is at the base of his gardens, it never overtake the practical side. The result is a new, very personal interpretation of formal garden as exemplified in this work for the Parisienne Festival: a contemporary solution as a source of inspiration for any urban garden.

http://www.jardinsjardin.com/jardins/les-jardins

The Laurent Perrier Garden at Jardins,Jardin 2010.

The Laurent-Perrier garden for Jardins,Jardin 2010 has been designed by the 2007 Chelsea Gold Medal designer Jinny Blom who decided to represent in this work of hers the birth of Champagne. The garden tries to evoke not only the creation and elegance of the wine itself but also the place where it comes from, its landscape, its lines.

Infact, the garden is the representation of the fragmented aerial view of the Champagne region: flowery spots among meadows areas whose pattern is interrupetd only by long white stripes.

A central white path crosses the whole garden, passing through a grape broken in two which are 6 mt long and 2,5 mt wide: the pure white sculptures reveals a black pattern of broken bottles inside. The overall effect is magnificent and very sophisticated.

Images via http://www.jardinier-amateur.fr/reportages-jardin/2010_salon_jardins_jardin_aux_tuileries_75,259.html

http://www.jinnyblom.com/Jardin.htm

Jardins,Jardin : the garden festival in Paris.

The chic-est garden festival of all has reached it's 7th edition: located in the magnificent Tuileries Gardens in the very heart of Paris, Jardins, Jardin gives us an idea of the latest trends in gardens and the "green world". For 2010, the organizers of the event have challenged designers to propose a contemporary and innovative vision of the garden, able to change our perspective and make us consider in a different way the connection between nature and cities.

Ecology and sustainability have been the favourite themes but with a twist. Infact, designers are not simply making "ecologically correct" gardens, they are re-inventing our role towards nature itself as exemplified by Amaury Gallon (designer at Jardins,Jardin 2010) "I consider the garden as an ecosystem with its animal or vegetable biodiversity. The Man must be able to express himself artistically but also respect the balances of this natural space."

Art and Nature are effectively combined in most of these gardens, creating interesting, poetic places.

Festival des Jardines Chaumont-sur-Loire 2010

"The International Garden Festival has been providing a unique panorama of landscape design all over the world since 1992. In 18 seasons, almost 400 gardens have been designed, which are prototypes of the gardens of the future. This year, around twenty gardens have been selected by the Jury from over 300 proposals that came in from all over the world. Great Britain, Germany, Italy, Japan and the Netherlands are represented in Chaumont.

At the same time a source of ideas and a nursery for talent, the festival gives an extra boost to the art of gardens and gains the interest of both the public and those in the trade by displaying new flower arrangements, new materials, new ideas and new approaches. The diversity and the high quality of the projects have contributed to the festival’s international reputation, which has become an indisputable meeting place for displaying the work of a new generation of landscape gardeners, architects, designers or gardeners."

http://www.domaine-chaumont.fr/index-en.php?page=festival&cat=102&expandable=2

Here it is a small selction of my personal favourite ones.

Garden n° 18 - The garden that sings by Rosalie Zeile and Amalia Besada, landscape architects, Germany.

“Listen” and “contemplate” are the key words of this garden. It devotes a large area to birds, whose presence enables people’s bodies to be cared for and their souls to be assuaged.

Garden n° 16 - Posh Tea, Posh People by PiP Partnership - George Richardson and Jules Arthur - landscape partnership, England.

“Posh Tea, Posh People” takes you on a voyage of discovery of the traditional uses of native plants in making herb teas and of the possibilities of incorporating these plants - so often disregarded - into contemporary beds. Every weekend at 4 pm, tea will be served in the garden. Visitors will also be invited to taste a herb tea, made using only the plants that are around them.

Garden n° 19 - Angels' hair by Christophe Marchalot, government approved architect, and Félicia Fortuna, author, France.

“Tillandsia usneoides” is a plant without a beginning or an end, light and rootless, untouchable in its glass box. It lets you see its silver hair transparently. This supernatural hair, like angels’ hair, appears to be an extension of the soul. It floats above an unknown surface, water and sky, light and mirror with multiple reflections. On this strange cloth, garden chairs invite you to have a rest. They are alongside a constellation of white and red water lilies, which gravitate around the plant, a symbol of the mystery of the soul. It might make you think of a merry-go-round that has slowly come to a stop, time for contemplation, time for a garden.

Garden n° 21 - Calligr-âme [Soul poem] by Hélene Le Merdy, government approved architect, Michaêl Ripoche, horticultural engineer, Jean-Michel Letellier and Miki Nakamura, artists, France & Japan.

In Japan, paper allows you to correspond with the Gods, either in the form of little folded papers attached to trees, or during ceremonies when the Shinto priest blesses the faithful with a paper branch. In Japanese, “Kami” means both “paper” and “God”.
With this relationship between the body and the mind as their starting point, the Franco-Japanese artistic couple and the two architects who work with them imagined a garden where the pathways form the ideogram of the soul: “Tamashi”.
The garden offers paper artworks made with mulberry bark. Only plants used to make paper were chosen (bamboos, hemp, grasses, poplar, papyrus). The absence of flowers contributes to stressing the vibratory effect caused by the leaves and their shades of colour.

Garden n° 3 - My Earth Mother by Olivier Hostiou, landscape engineer, Marie Forêt and Laurent Weiss, wicker worker , France.

The earth is mother to all of us, she gave birth to us through the alchemy of her elements: reestablishing this initial contact with our “Earth Mother” is the purpose of this garden.The garden welcomes you for a new gestation and invites you to walk slowly, to get caught up in this mysterious whirlwind.