The Botany for Change award: designing the City Garden of the future
Creating the city garden of the future
A competition to develop our green sensibilities
Plants are gradually disappearing from our cities. When we think about our gardens, parks and squares, a few key questions come to mind. What will the garden of the future look like? How will it find its place in our growing cities? How will it adapt to climate change, and to new ways of life?
To answer these questions, we mobilize those who will create the world of the future! The "Botany for Change" award challenges students from all over France to present their visions of the city garden of the future.
This requires imagination, but the proposals must be more than simply theoretical: the project is firmly rooted in the real world. The winning project will be brought to life in the location selected for the challenge: Parc de la Villette, the Paris City Hall...
Challenging specialized students
Who can participate? Groups of botany, horticulture, architecture and landscape design students. These young experts from all over France must dream up a plant creation that represents the garden of the future.
Each year, the competitors propose their visions in detailed files, based on a dual challenge: a real location, and a predefined theme (such as the Five Senses).
An occasion for these budding young botanists to improve our world and make a positive, concrete, active contribution, which also provides excellent visibility for the winners!
A jury of experts, of course!
To win, a team must set itself apart by creating an innovative, aesthetically-pleasing and visionary project! But who chooses the winners? Our foundation calls on key players of the botany world. Since we strongly believe that diversity is strength, and not only for plants, we invite people with a variety of backgrounds in order to bring diverse, complementary viewpoints to the panel, with technical, creative and visionary focuses.
A national and international award
The 2021 winning project
For the sixth edition of the National Botany for Change Award, it was the ‘Two Loops Garden’ that won over both the judging panel and the voting public.
This urban garden of tomorrow will soon be seen springing to life in an unprecedented location, the Happy Vallée, transforming a section of the A1 Paris-Roissy motorway into a nurturing and joyful ecological beltway.
Find out more about the 2021 winning project
The 2020 winning project
With the ‘bee-friendly garden’ project, the young designers of this particular garden wanted to draw the public’s attention to bees and recreate that special relationship between man, animals, and plants.
The winning project for 2019
After 3 French awards, Botany for Change 2019 has gone international. With more than 80 projects presented in Korea, there is undoubted enthusiasm and interest in this competition abroad. As part of the 1st international Botany for Change award, Korean students designed an urban “Garden of Plant Velocity” to help mankind fall in step with nature again. This is the ambitious project of Kayoung LEE and Dasup LIM.
The winning project for 2018
For the third edition of the Botany for Change award, the participating students designed the Urban Garden of the Future on the theme of Mediterranean biodiversity, with the aim of raising the public’s awareness and preserving biodiversity in urban areas.
To achieve this, they had to include an interactive dimension for the public.
It was the "Garden of the Nymphs" by Mathilde Clément and Nicolas Delporte that won the hearts of our expert jury!
The winning project for 2017
To appeal to the 5 senses of visitors to Parc de la Villette, the "Diffuse Line" project incorporated a surprising line of plants and blooms designed to awaken the senses in every season. A creation by Arnaud Haincaud and Anthony Menut, students at the École Nationale Supérieure de Paysage de Versailles.
The 2016 edition
The very first Botany for Change award was presented in 2016. That year, the imaginary gardens of four winners were created in real-world conditions as part of a "beautanical puzzle" in front of Paris City Hall.
The "Garden of the Nymphs", winning project for 2018, 2 years later...
