Barefoot in the garden

The proposed garden establishes an analogy to the creative activities involved in making films. It has sequences, a narrative and actors. The sequence of the garden comprises three unique thematic scenes (the desert, the forest and the meadow). The narrative is the path, which is both lineal and winding, and which holds the sequence together. The actors are the visitors, who improvise life in the garden. The goal of the design is to construct the visitor’s experience and their emotional response to it through exploration and surprise.

Motion and pause. The visitor perceives the space as somewhere to explore. They follow the path and discover the themes of the garden. This discovery happens as a result of moving through the space, through location after location. We want visitors to walk barefoot on the ground, so they can feel it as it mutates from sand to gravel, bark and wood. The way is paved with different materials and bordered by hedges of different heights comprising different species, depending on the specific moment in the experience.

Scenes. Each scene, the desert, forest and meadow, are specific places and habitats that form part of the landscape of our planet. The desert is horizontal, with a dry gravel floor and plants from the cactus family. The forest is a vertical, dense enclosure, with climbing plants like ipomoea, draped over supporting structures made of iron. The last of the three spaces is a field of green hills that visitors can enjoy discovering and where children can play, with wildflowers and tall grass.

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Italia

Isotta Cortesi. Isotta is an architect, landscaper and associate lecturer on landscape architecture at the University of Naples Federico II, Italy. She has her own architecture and landscaping firm in Parma, Italy. She obtained her architecture degree and PhD in architecture and urban design at the School of Architecture of the University of Florence, Italy. She holds a master of architecture from the University of Virginia, USA. She is currently a member of the doctoral thesis panel for landscape and environment at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy.She teaches, practises and speaks about landscape architecture at a national and international level and is author of numerous articles and monographs. Theory and design of public spaces is the central focus of her research. 

Gisela Bartoloni. Gisela graduated as an architect in 2009 from the Faculty of Architecture, Urban Studies and Design of the National University of Córdoba, Argentina. She went to Italy in 2015, to continue with her studies at the Polytechnic University of Milan and, in 2018, she completed a master’s degree in sustainable architecture and landscape design. Over the course of her career, she has worked across several disciplines, including as a junior architect, and in institutional communications, graphic design, photography and as a member of academic staff. Since beginning her thesis and, more recently, since joining Cortesi Architetti, she has begun exploring the field of landscaping with passion and high expectations regarding new career paths.