Côte d’Azur Garden Festival 2021
Landscape and Garden Design Competition on the French Riviera
Location: Ranskan Riviera
Year: 2021
• Project Design
Our garden combined Mediterranean plants with art. We wanted our artistic creation to demonstrate the interaction between art, nature, the senses, and emotions. The laser-cut pergola roofs created stunning shadow patterns on the ground, turning light into an artistic element.
Initially, I wanted the pergola legs to be made of steel, just like the horizontal beams and narrow support slats under the roof. However, due to proportional requirements, the leg beams needed to be 150 mm thick, which made them too heavy in steel. We decided to use wood instead, with a preference for old timber. Unfortunately, old reclaimed wood was unavailable, so we stained the wooden legs gray to allow the natural wood grain to remain visible.
The construction of our garden was overseen by a French contractor. The team included a site manager and three full-time workers, each of whom participated in nearly all tasks. None of them had experience with welding, but the lead site manager took on the challenge of handling the welding work.
• Meeting the Senses
The Côte d'Azur Garden Festival 2021 is an international garden festival held in France. The competition was organized by the Département des Alpes-Maritimes, and the festival construction and competition took place in April and May. This was our first true collaborative project as designers in the world of exhibition gardens. Our team participated under the name Team Finland.The lead designer of our garden was Kairi Meos, an Estonian landscape architect working in Finland. The plant design was managed by my assistant, Svetlana Lavrentyeva, a garden designer. My responsibility was the structural design and material selections. The theme of the competition was “Art in the Garden.”
My specific tasks included detailed structural drawings, ensuring load-bearing capacity, and selecting materials with all required quantity lists. One of the biggest design challenges was the availability of transport and lifting equipment during the pandemic, as there were no local service providers near our garden site. We had to consider the possibility that we might have to lift the structures into place manually.
• Awards
The greatest achievement for Team Finland in this exhibition garden competition was reaching the final round, where only 17 designs worldwide advanced. Of those, 13 gardens were built, distributed across multiple cities on the French Riviera.
The pandemic and the postponed competition schedule made it difficult for some teams to construct their finalist projects. However, for us, the greatest reward was this incredible and unforgettable experience and everything that it encompassed.• Head Judge & Industry Recognition
The head judge of the competition was the world-renowned garden designer James Basson. Over his career, he has won numerous international exhibition garden competitions, including four gold medals at the Chelsea Flower Show and various other national and international awards (Scape Design, n.d.).
James Basson also designed a special project garden in Moscow's old town, titled ‘Maia Plisetskaya – Carmen’, which remains a permanent landmark representing his expertise. I first met James Basson during the summer of 2018, and he has continued to be a major source of inspiration, a mentor, and a valuable international contact. Over the years, I have met him multiple times in different countries through various industry events and competitions.
Although this was my first project on the French Riviera, I received positive feedback from visitors, colleagues, and judges. This experience strengthened my network in the international garden design community and provided invaluable insights for future competition projects.
• Construction and Modifications
Our garden was located in Antibes, in the Juan-les-Pins residential area. The festival was originally scheduled for early April, but due to the pandemic, it was postponed by one month. We began construction in late April, continuing into May, just before the festival’s opening.
The biggest challenges included:Welding the pergola structures
Installing curved planter supports into extremely hard soil using only hand tools
Strong winds reaching up to 36 meters per second, requiring the heavy pergola roof panels to be securely fastened to the support columns
The welding work proved to be difficult for the contractor, reminding me of the challenges I faced in Moscow and the advice from James Basson:
“Heidi, don’t design welded structures for exhibition gardens abroad—you never know the quality of welding the contractor will deliver. Most of them are not professionally trained in welding.”
To fix the worst issues, we painted over the welding joints with black paint, which had already been planned for problem areas.
The support structures for the art paintings were built and installed before the festival, during the workshop phase, where we painted the planned artworks on the panels.
To conceal the wooden A-frame supports, we covered them entirely with soil and plants. I designed the legs using sturdy pressure-treated wooden beams. The painted plywood panels were framed with wooden borders to prevent water damage from rain and to enhance the aesthetic appeal.
All pictures from competition
