Soil Cutaway Garden

Jardins de Metis (Quebec), 2012

Excavated, piled, exposed.

By carefully excavating the soil until the water table at -1.5m is reached, surgically removing each of its layers, piling these materials next to the resulting void, and laying out the strata in the same order, the proposal shows that gardening is a transformation process in which balance within a site plays a crucial role.

The garden is made up of the matter of the place itself, from the level of water table all the way up to the sky. What is usually unseen technology of the soil’s section and its components is revealed and placed in full view, both downwards towards the deeper realms of the earth and upwards towards the life that takes place above ground. To achieve this, earth retention in the excavated part and contention of the pile is provided by transparent reinforced security glass. Through these surfaces visitors can observe the different behaviors of the soil’s diverse materials, their changes through time once they have been manipulated and exposed, as well as their influence on the resulting horizontal artificial landscapes and ecosystems: a shimmering puddle of water at the bottom of the excavation, and a wild meadow on the surface of the pile of earth.