Assistant Professor Peter North and Master of Landscape Architecture students from his elective course, Regenerative Landscape Technologies, were invited to conceptualize and construct a contemporary garden as part of the 2015 International Garden Festival at Les Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens in Grand-Métis, Quebec this summer. The MACRO/MICRO/MYCO garden was developed from class research of engineered remediation technologies, and their potential application in contemporary landscape design.

The team included Peter North, Jordan Duke, Jasper Flores, Dayne Roy-Caldwell, Anna Rosen, Nicholas Gosselin, Hanna Chung, Jaclyn Ryback, Siqi Li, Ameneh Kadivar, Tamar Pister, Yingyi Zhao, and Anita Manitius.

Emerging from the forest floor, MACRO/MICRO/MYCO is a folded, modular structure hosting select varieties of mushrooms, and celebrating the role of fungi in fortifying and upholding forest ecosystems. The mycelial networks of fungi intersect and permeate one another, generating the foundation of soils worldwide. They envelop the roots of grasses, shrubs, and trees, forming an intelligent biological model of connecting organisms to one another. Fungal complexity is the common denominator of a healthy forest.

The structure is composed of growing units, accommodating the substrate wherein mushrooms propagate. Every surface carries a unique mushroom species — genetic diversity of fungi is vast by design, and crucial for life to continue. The surface is made up of distinctively cut panels, evoking the filaments of mycelial structure.

The garden offers the distinct experience of traversing scales in which we appreciate the mycelial process: micro, or the wonder of these tiny organisms and the intimacy they provoke, and macro, or the vastness of the environment they inhabit and foster.

North and his students describe the project in more detail in the video below, which also showcases the contemporary mushroom garden's design and construction:

This year’s festival showcased 20 gardens designed by landscape architects, architects, artists, and designers from around the world. Past participants have included Michael Van Valkenburgh, Claude Cormier, Diana Balmori, Stefan Tischer, Ken Smith, Snøhetta, Stoss LU, and North Design Office.

For more information about the project, visit Les Jardins de Métis/Reford Gardens website. 

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