These colourful summer installations – which include features from the Le Festival des Architectures Vives, and a new pavilion by Brooks + Scarpa – are enlivening garden festivals and public spaces around the world.
1 Vertical Line Garden by Julia Jamrozik and Coryn Kempster
This Canadian design duo spent time working with Herzog & de Meuron before returning to home soil. In 2014 they first installed their Line Garden as part of the International Garden Festival, in Grand-Métis, Québec, and over the past three summers the piece has evolved, this year relaunching as a vertical canopy full of colour and pattern.
2 Imposteur by Les malcommodes
The fourth edition of Passages Insolites (Unusual Passages) has brought to Quebec City a collection of nine playful and intriguing installations that explore the concept of passage. Among the works by visual artists and architecture collectives is this bright pink throughway that cuts a new path across the “moat” and through the 17th-century royal battery at the edge of the St. Lawrence River.
3 Pigalle Duperré by Ill-Studio and fashion label Pigalle
French art direction platform Ill-Studio and fashion label Pigalle teamed up with Nike to bring new life to this awkward urban space. They transformed the oddly shaped lot, crammed amidst a row of buildings in the 9th arrondissement of Paris, into a rubber-floored basketball court in a vivid palette of pinks, blues and oranges.
4 The Festival des Architectures Vives, in Montpellier, France
This annual festival inserts new works from young architects into the historic courtyards of Montpellier’s private hotels, giving the public a chance to explore the city’s hidden architectural gems, as well as new talent. Among 12 works on show this past June was La Madeleine, a three-metre-square structure that Atelier Micromega built from 2,500 colourful plastics bricks, and Lucía Martínez and Raquel Durán’s Immersion, which filled a space with 500 cherry red balloons.
5 Pembroke Pine Pavilion by Brooks + Scarpa Architects
This sunny yellow sculpture complements its palm tree neighbours at a new public plaza in southern Florida. The permanent art installation marks the entrance to the new Pembroke Pines Civic Center and City Hall, a complex that incorporates a performing arts hall and art gallery. It also offers shade in the day time and is lit up with a programmable LED system at night.
