Mapping Sensitivity and the Practice of Garden Design

The International Garden Festival, held at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens in Grand-Métis, Quebec, Canada, has announced the selected projects and overall outline for its 27th edition, running from June 20 to October 4, 2026. For this edition, the Festival invited architects, landscape architects, and designers from around the world to propose gardens grounded in sensitivity, inclusivity, and relational thinking. From 204 submissions representing 29 countries, five projects were selected. 

The 2026 Visual Identity – Mapping Sensitivity
Photo credit: bureau60a

The Theme Mapping Sensitivity

The theme “Mapping Sensitivity” forms part of a three-year thematic cycle launched in 2025 and continues an ongoing inquiry into the poetics of space, questioning how individuals relate to their physical surroundings and to the world at large. While the previous theme, “Borders,” addressed the organization and representation of geographic space through geopolitical perspectives, the 27th edition turns toward le tournant sensible, or the sensitive turn. The theme draws inspiration from sensitive mapping, an approach that foregrounds subjective and immaterial dimensions of place rather than relying on conventional cartography. Sensitive mapping traces how spaces are described, inhabited, and felt, accounting for lived experience and emotional attachment through cultural, phenomenological, experiential, cognitive, and contextual factors. Within the Festival, the garden becomes a medium through which these layered relationships are articulated.

Selected Projects and Designers

Again, a Garden：Architect Hugh Taylor | Manitoba, Canada / United States

Again, a Garden takes the form of a walled pavilion constructed from cut fallen logs sandwiched between metal plates. Planted with native pollinator species, the garden traces the flows of life between the site and its surrounding environment. Moments of rest and reflection coexist with an awareness of decay and regeneration as interconnected elements within a single system.

Again, a Garden (elevation view)
Hugh Taylor | Manitoba, Canada + États-Unis
Photo credit: Hugh Taylor

Again, a Garden (interior view)
Hugh Taylor | Manitoba, Canada + États-Unis
Photo credit: Hugh Taylor

Again, a Garden (plan)
Hugh Taylor | Manitoba, Canada + États-Unis
Photo credit: Hugh Taylor

Frame：Architect Ulli Heckmann | Germany / The Netherlands

Frame is an architectural reflection on how perception of both environment and self is shaped by viewpoint. The sculptural structure offers curated views and varying degrees of intimacy, emphasizing perspective as the foundation of spatial experience. By directing attention toward what remains unseen, the project invites experimentation with architectural space and bodily awareness.

Frame (axonometric view)
Ulli Heckmann | Allemagne + Pays-Bas
Photo credit: Ulli Heckmann

Frame (elevation view)
Ulli Heckmann | Allemagne + Pays-Bas
Photo credit: Ulli Heckmann

Frame (elevation view)
Ulli Heckmann | Allemagne + Pays-Bas
Photo credit: Ulli Heckmann

Mentho-artemision：Landscape Designer Etienne Lapleau | France

Mentho-artemision reconstructs contrasting sensations typically perceived at the scale of the landscape within a confined space. By juxtaposing the environments in which mint and mugwort grow, the garden condenses sensory experience. Visitors perceive transitions from dry to humid conditions through sight, smell, and touch.

Mentho-artemision
Etienne Lapleau | France
Photo credit: Etienne Lapleau

Mentho-artemision
Etienne Lapleau | France
Photo credit: Etienne Lapleau

Mentho-artemision
Etienne Lapleau | France
Photo credit: Etienne Lapleau

Tainai-Meguri：Measured Architecture Inc. + Architects Tamotsu Tongu and Kumpei Wakino | British Columbia, Canada

Tainai-Meguri addresses the often-unquestioned immersion in digital space. The project envisions this intangible realm as a cave made tangible through a sweeping arbour. Nature, water, and light converge to create a meditative journey in which inner and outer worlds gradually dissolve.

Tainai-Meguri (axonometric aerial view)
Measured Architecture Inc. + Tamotsu Tongu, Kumpei Wakino | Colombie-Britannique, Canada
Photo credit: Measured Architecture Inc.

Tainai-Meguri (procession view)
Measured Architecture Inc. + Tamotsu Tongu, Kumpei Wakino | Colombie-Britannique, Canada
Photo credit: Measured Architecture Inc.

Tainai-Meguri (section)
Measured Architecture Inc. + Tamotsu Tongu, Kumpei Wakino | Colombie-Britannique, Canada
Photo credit: Measured Architecture Inc.

Worm’s Eye：Artist Ellen Harris | United States

Drawing on anthropologist James C. Scott’s critique of the cartographic “view from above,” Worm’s Eye proposes a form of camouflage architecture. The project resists top-down legibility imposed by large-scale systems and instead encourages an intimate, local, and necessarily partial understanding of place.

Worm's Eye (frontal view, facing the length of the structure)
Ellen Harris | États-Unis
Photo credit: Ellen Harris

Worm's Eye (aerial view, at dusk)
Ellen Harris | États-Unis
Photo credit: Ellen Harris

Worm's Eye (perspectival view, as seen from an adjacent pathway)
Ellen Harris | États-Unis
Photo credit: Ellen Harris

Special Mentions

The jury awarded special mentions to two projects: “À hauteur de tige” by Sarah Bengle and Vivi Lamarre (Quebec, Canada), and “Threshold of Succession” by Matthew Hickey, Adrian Hutchinson, Michael Ormston-Holloway, and Hannah Wallace-Lund (Ontario, Canada).

Visual Identity

The visual identity for the 2025–2027 thematic cycle was developed by bureau60a, an independent design studio based in Quebec. Drawing from modern cartographic language and symbols while adopting a biocentric perspective inspired by pollen dispersion, the graphic system transcends territorial and temporal boundaries, resulting in a proposal that is poetic, meaningful, and subtly subversive.

About the International Garden Festival

Founded in 2000, the International Garden Festival is recognized as one of the most significant garden events in North America and a leading annual garden festival worldwide. More than 180 contemporary gardens have been presented at Grand-Métis and as off-site projects in Canada and abroad. Held at Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens, at the gateway to the Gaspé Peninsula, the Festival establishes a dialogue between history and modernity, connecting conservation, tradition, and innovation.

About Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens

A National Historic Site of Canada and a designated Quebec heritage site, Les Jardins de Métis / Reford Gardens is a cultural landmark of the Gaspé Peninsula and the Lower St. Lawrence region. Designed by horticulturist Elsie Reford between 1926 and 1958, the Gardens are internationally recognized and ranked among the world’s 150 great gardens. The year 2026 marks the beginning of the centennial celebration of the Gardens, which welcomed more than 60,000 visitors in 2025.