Wagon landscaping – HANDSCALE
Welcome to a seminar organized by the Stockholm Architectural
Association at KTH School of Architecture.
Wagon Landscaping is a Paris-based studio founded by Mathieu Gontier and François Vadepied. The studio develops its project concepts through the practice of gardening and landscape-making. Through the observation of plants and natural dynamics, their work is grounded in ecological science and biodiversity research. Their projects address a narrow niche of small-scale situations; the modes of attention and engagement with landscape that Wagon practices offer relevant answers to how we might rethink approaches to landscape across other typologies and scales.
Wagon’s work is often conceptually intriguing and bold, yet based on minimal transformation, focusing primarily on conditions for growth and on the study of soil, plant, and animal dynamics. Several projects address the opening of asphalt surfaces and investigate the aesthetics emerging from an ethical stance of leaving materials in place. While this approach may recall the work of artist Lois Weinberger, Burning and Walking (1992), Wagon has extended it into research and a wide range of applications. The studio team builds most of its projects themselves; alongside computers, the office is also equipped with shovels, rakes, and hoes.
Mathieu Gontier, was initially trained in the arts and in the Russian language and graduated as a landscape architect in 2007, maintaining a close relationship between art and landscape. He teaches at the Versailles School of Landscape, where he manages the landscape master’s program in Marseille.
François Vadepied, initially graduated in geophysics and cartography at the IGN. After fifteen years working in the field of digital cartography, he decided to radically change his professional path. He graduated as a landscape architect in 2007. He teaches at the National School of Landscape of Versailles and at ESAJ in Paris.
Talk starts at 18:00, KTH School of Architecture, Osquars backe 5, Room A108. A-baren serve drinks from 17:00
and stays open after the event. Free entry. No registration required. Organized by the Stockholm Architectural
Association through Maria Höök & Anders Kling.