International Garden Festival – Jardins de Métis 2019

Hide-and-seek retraces the traditional shape of the labyrinth and reinvents its elements with new materials, adding a further dimension: going through the hedges. The “hedges” – 2.5 m high and 60 cm deep – are planned to be massive elements for the view. The surfaces are made of thickly and movable stretched rubber bands, which allow visitors to discover the new dimension and pass through the hedges by pulling the elastic bands away. This simple act will completely twist the rules of a labyrinth welcoming visitors inside the hedges.
The play-scape enlarges itself creating a further level of complexity of the playground. A hidden-room is integrated in the labyrinth as treasure garden, pointing out the eternal dichotomy between fake and real, superimposed and natural. The action of physically going through a visual obstacle negates the labyrinth as itself and creates a new concept of labyrinth, a new contemporary ludic space.
Therefore, the proposal is a more intriguing playground, which is finding its roots in the history of the art of the garden.

with Dipl.-Ing. Marion Guichard