Design by maintenance
Over the following decade, the spatial design of the garden was not dictated by a static masterplan, but emerged directly from the act of maintenance.
By limiting human intervention to simply mowing dynamic pathways through the spontaneous grasses, the landscape became a highly plastic, raw material. The untamed meadows and emerging shrubs were allowed to claim space and dictate new volumes. As a result, the role of the designer shifted from a controller to a spatial negotiator.
Open clearings slowly evolved into enclosed atmospheric rooms, allowing us to test spatial behaviors and human movement purely through the rhythm of the seasons. As organic matter and deadwood were left to decompose on-site, the plant community diversified and the soil visibly regenerated, proving the efficiency of stepping back.
The social barometer
Crucially, LLAB operates as a sociological experiment as much as an ecological one. The shifting aesthetics of the garden sparked continuous dialogue and debate with the site’s primary stakeholder - Philippe’s father - about what constitutes an acceptable or clean landscape. This interpersonal negotiation serves as a perfect microcosm for the broader societal challenges of ecological transition.
The unkempt, wilder growth acted as a physical barometer, testing the limits of individual acceptance and defining the thresholds where untamed nature and human comfort intersect. It demonstrated that shifting ecological practices requires steering individual mindsets, validating different shades of green, and building a narrative where maintenance is an active dialogue.
In-situ material prototyping
Beyond vegetative processes, LLAB serves as a physical staging ground for architectural and material experiments.
It is a space to test how raw, vernacular materials interact with an untamed environment before or after their inclusion in broader agency projects (the arboreal soul), or testing simple, primitive volumes using reused timber beams (from the Chaumont sacred grove garden), the site allows us to observe how inanimate materials anchor themselves within a shifting, living matrix.
Productive entanglement
Today, after ten years of observing natural succession, the laboratory has entered a phase of active, structural intervention. Rather than reverting to horticultural norms, the focus has shifted toward productive remediation and climate resilience, particularly as the region experiences increasingly intense summer droughts.
A new, drought-tolerant canopy and understory are slowly being woven into the site. This structural layer features a mix of indigenous and utilitarian species planted for foraging and craft. It includes apple, apricot, pawpaw, Sichuan pepper alongside functional shrubs like Philadelphus for soap-making, and structural trees like sessile and cork oaks.
By reintroducing these productive layers alongside a stabilizing herbaceous stratum, LLAB continues to prototype a landscape of true interdependency, where human cultivation and non-human agency actively sustain one another.