The Laurent-Perrier Garden

The garden was intended to be a contemplative space with a dreamy, slightly surreal character. It could be a private garden but was conceived more as an installation, an idea of how a complex and subtle space could be formulated from simple repeated elements.

The layout was composed by overlaying of a number of separate patterns: a grove of thirty-year old cloud-pruned hornbeams, a pattern of paths in Flemish bricks, a number of zinc tanks brimming with water, and an undulating tapestry of herbaceous planting, predominantly green with a few white flowers.

The garden was in part a reaction against the traditional ‘Chelsea garden’ with its eye-catching features and assumptions about how people will experience a space. It was also about atmosphere and mood, setting an intentional contrast between the alluring beauty of the exterior with its white peonies, and the more melancholic middle part of the garden.