Studio Baudequinmaldes has unveiled an innovative project called "Petites Inventions du Paysage" (Small Inventions of the Landscape), featuring three interactive devices and a micro-architecture that invite visitors to engage sensitively and poetically with nature's subtle phenomena. Located within the Petit musée des plantes sauvages comestibles (Small Museum of Wild Edible Plants) in the rural, forested environment of Berrac in southern France, these tactile installations take the form of architectural archetypes: the Sensory Shelter, the Scent Mill, the Sky Lighthouse, and the Vegetal Fountain.
The installations are crafted entirely from local materials characteristic of the region, including red clay and pine wood. Significantly, the project was supported and realized through the participation of Berrac's local community, with residents contributing to the creation of these devices in various ways.
The design philosophy centers on the premise that human relationships with the natural world are deeply embodied and experienced through the senses. Studio Baudequinmaldes adopted a methodology focusing on the corporeal and sensorial dimensions of experience, leading them to consider the landscape as a lived space filled with meanings and sensations that shape how people experience and relate to the world around them.
The location serves as a laboratory for sensitive experimentation, where visitors can gather elements for reflection and materials for thought, helping to re-articulate human alliances with the landscape and living beings. The team observes how practices, experiential knowledge, and in-situ results intertwine to question conventional modes of mediation with the natural world.
The Sensory Shelter offers visitors a moment of tranquility designed to awaken the senses and invite contemplation of rain sounds. Built in harmony with its environment, the shelter provides an immersive experience dedicated to contemplation and daydreaming. Its Douglas fir structure is constructed on a field of wild mint and crowned with climbing and aromatic plants. During rainy days, the fresh scents of these plants are released, creating a subtle, soothing atmosphere.
The shelter's roof features a gentle slope that directs water flow down the center along an inverted chimney design. At the heart of the shelter sits a brass bowl perched on a mound of intertwined wood that echoes the structure's architecture on a smaller scale. The melodic sound of raindrops falling into the bowl invites visitors to be carried away by this natural symphony. Visitors are encouraged to take in this living fragment of the landscape using all their sensory capabilities while enjoying the protection provided by the structure.
Designed as a place of rest where time seems suspended, the Sensory Shelter brings together conditions needed to rediscover inner peace amid the outside world's hustle and bustle. This space offers walkers the opportunity to question conventional ways of living with greater sensitivity.
The Scent Mill is positioned at the museum's end, close to the washhouse and overflowing spring. Taking the form of a large transparent tube open at both ends and anchored in damp ground, it features a red ceramic propeller at nose level that captures and records an olfactory sample of the site. This olfactory core sample, composed of a mixture of air, earth, pebbles, and vegetation, highlights smell's ghostly presence.
Visitors are invited to turn the propeller to immerse themselves in this olfactory maceration. The propeller's movements, by stirring the air, make it possible to see and breathe in these components imprisoned within the structure. Visitors also have the opportunity to deposit their own olfactory notes at the bottom of the transparent cylinder, including crumpled wild mint, fragmented lemon balm, crushed marsh ache, and fragmented bay leaves, among others. These olfactory elements, discovered and collected along the way, testify to the diversity of the site's olfactory landscape.
The Sky Lighthouse encourages visual exploration and attention to the different landscapes that compose the sky. At times, the interior of the bowl is tinged with different shades of blue; at other moments, it becomes veiled in mist or dotted with moving cumulus clouds. This installation offers a contemplative experience, highlighting the passage of time through the sky's changing hues.
The device invites walkers to perform rotational movements to orient the mirror and observe various meteorological micro-events. The tool frames the sky like a sensitive lens focused on light, clouds, and the slow pace of change. The Lighthouse functions as a poetic observatory, an instrument for measuring suspended moments where the sky becomes material for reading, daydreaming, and shared attention.
The Vegetal Fountain comprises five pieces of red stoneware inspired by the concept of hanging gardens. This accumulative arrangement creates a vertical planter where superimposed earth houses a variety of aromatic plants. Erected high above the ground, this construction allows walkers to fully appreciate the fragrance of the cultivated herbs.
Conceived as a point of elevation at the landscape's heart, the fountain becomes both a biodiversity support system and a sensory device. The plants grown there are chosen for their olfactory richness and their ability to attract insects and birds, creating a micro-zone of living interaction. The installation's verticality plays with perception levels, setting the sense of smell in motion and exploring the different strata of this plant column.
The fountain invites visitors to slow down, bend over, and breathe deeply. The simple gesture of smelling a plant becomes a ritual of reconnection with the forest, an attention to an ecosystem's subtleties. The fountain proposes a pause, a suspended moment to perceive the fragility of living things and the discreet beauty of the ordinary world.
When rain hits the ground, the aromas of earth and leaves are released, rising up through the Scent Mill's transparent tube, which functions as a manually triggered olfactory device that transforms scented materials into a reconnecting experience. The base collects moisture and plant matter, operating as a passive olfactory system activated by rain and evaporation.
The Sky Lighthouse serves as a tool for observing the sky, framing clouds, light shifts, and weather's subtle choreography. Activated by movement, the structure guides the gaze, transforming sky-watching into a shared ritual where a slice of sky appears not above but within, making reflection become perception.
The Vegetal Fountain functions as a vertical clay garden that brings aromatic plants within smelling distance, with aromatic plants accessible through a funnel design that enhances the olfactory experience.
The project was designed by Studio Baudequinmaldes and is located in Berrac, France. Photography was provided by Mathieu Maldes. The installation represents an innovative approach to creating sensory connections between humans and nature through thoughtfully designed architectural interventions.
