For its 27th edition, which will run from June 20 to October 4, 2026, the International Garden Festival invited designers from all backgrounds to design a garden using a sensitive, fundamentally inclusive, and relational approach. Among the 204 project proposals that were submitted by designers from 29 countries, 5 were selected.
This year’s theme, Mapping Sensitivity, pursues an ongoing reflection on the poetics of space – namely, how we relate to our physical surroundings and, more broadly, to the world. It draws its inspiration from sensitive mapping, which, far more than a simple alternative to traditional cartography, is concerned with the subjective and immaterial dimensions of a place. Sensitive mapping traces the shared representations of a space that is described, lived, and felt. It takes into account users’ real experiences of a given space and the emotional relationship that they develop with it, considering cultural, phenomenological, experiential, cognitive, and contextual factors.
Take a look at the winning designs below:
Again, a Garden
Hugh Taylor | Manitoba, Canada + United States
Again, a Garden is a walled garden – a pavilion constructed from cut fallen logs sandwiched between metal plates – within which native pollinator species are planted. It traces the flows of life in the garden and its nearby environment. Even as it provides moments for rest and reflection, the garden encourages visitors to become aware of their surroundings as a cycle where decay and life are understood as integral parts of a single system.
Frame
Ulli Heckmann | Germany + the Netherlands
Frame is an architectural reflection about how we perceive both our environment and ourselves in a given situation. The sculptural object provides curated views and different levels of intimacy to show the complexity of spatial experience and to highlight our viewpoint as the basis of our perception. By inviting us to discover what is not visible, Frame facilitates experimentation with architectural space, as well as body and environmental awareness.
Mentho-artemision
Etienne Lapleau | France
Like a sensitive map, Mentho-artemision reconstructs, in a confined space, contrasting sensations usually perceived at landscape scale. By bringing together the distinct environments in which mint and mugwort grow, the garden condenses sensory perceptions: visitors feel the transitions from dry to humid through sight, smell, and touch.
Tainai-Meguri
Measured Architecture Inc. + Tamotsu Tongu, Kumpei Wakino | British Columbia, Canada
Every day, we navigate digital space without question and act as if the screen itself were reality. Yet our perception of the world and our sense of being are shaped by intangible data. Tainai-Meguri envisions this digital space as a cave made tangible by a sweeping arbour. A convergence of nature, water, and light brings about a return to origin – a meditative journey in which inner and outer worlds dissolve.
Worm’s Eye
Ellen Harris | United States
The anthropologist and political scientist James C. Scott identified the cartographic “view from above” as the position from which large-scale entities, such as modern states and multinational corporations, impose conditions of legibility on the subjects and territories under their control. Worm’s Eye imagines a “camouflage architecture” that frustrates this kind of top-down legibility and encourages visitors to have a different understanding of place: intimate, local, and necessarily partial.
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