2021 Botany For Change Award – Winning Project
In November 2020, Klorane Botanical Foundation launched a call for projects among botany, horticulture, architecture and landscaping students for them to design the urban garden of tomorrow in a truly unique setting, Happy Vallée!
The purpose of this nationwide competition was to put plants back at the heart of our cities and, more specifically, to revegetate a 1,000m2 plot of land in 2021 near the A1 motorway in Roissy-en-France.
The award, which involves creativity, innovation and technique, will leave a lasting mark on Happy Vallée, an agroecological strip of 1,200 hectares between Paris and Roissy-en-France, which will ultimately benefit the people living and working locally.
For almost 4 months, students worked on their ideas and 6 highly promising and creative projects were put to a professional judging panel made up of:
- Gad Weil (Artistic Director, Happy Vallée),
- Alain Baraton (Head Gardener at the Palace of Versailles),
- Eric Chiron (Floral Designer and Gardener),
- Nicolas Delporte (Landscape Designer – 2018 winner),
- The city of Roissy-en-France represented by Patrick Pamart, Denis Côme and Rodolphe Meunier,
- Klorane Botanical Foundation, represented by Stéphanie Lambey and Nawal Saïchi.
On 18 March, after some hours of deliberation, the panel shortlisted two finalists, the ‘Nature in Cultures’ Garden (Jardin ‘Nature en Cultures’) and the ‘Two Loops’ Garden (Jardin ‘Des Deux Boucles’), which were then put to the Klorane Botanical Foundation’s Instagram and Facebook communities and the residents of Roissy-en-France to choose the winning project.
And the winner is... the ‘Two Loops’ Garden
Following a public vote, the ‘Two Loops’ Garden project won over the most hearts and minds with 2,005 votes.
This 1,000m2 garden is built around a double loop: the northern part and the southern part.
The northern part will include the ‘Garden For All’, awakening visitors’ senses with real growing fruit to the delight of every nature-loving park goer. A natural hedge will provide a visual aspect that changes with the seasons.
The southern part will consist of a flowery meadow, flower beds and a ‘young shoots patch’, the latter designed as a colourful space to educate both young and old alike about the importance of biodiversity preservation.
The winning team
The winning team for the 2021 edition of the Botany For Change Award is made up of 5 fourth-year landscape engineering students from Agrocampus Ouest in Angers.
Élise Brillaud, Suzanne Capillaire, Hugo Faure, Aurélien Mondon and Raphaël Perez won over the judging panel and the general public by coming up with a garden that highlights the rich biodiversity present in Île-de-France, in order to protect and enhance it, while putting local plant life firmly at the heart of their design.
The ‘Two Loops’ Garden unveiled and open to the public from 16 June 2021
On Wednesday, 16 June 2021, the inauguration ceremony for the Two Loops Garden took place, alongside an official prize-giving by Klorane Botanical Foundation and members of the judging panel.
After the ceremony, the students led a guided tour through the heart of a garden that is “just bursting to grow, bloom, turn green and become a real playground for local people”. In the afternoon, 60 children from centres across Roissy-en-France were welcomed to the site to take part in workshops to make nesting boxes and seed bombs!
From Saturday, 19 June 2021, Roissy-en-France local residents have been able to discover the garden and enjoy meeting their neighbours in the spirit of dialogue, raising awareness and creation.
