Canada, 2026-02-03 -  Grand-Métis, Quebec, Canada, February 3, 2026 – 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
In the wake of the triennial thematic cycle initiated a year ago, 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. Whereas Borders focused on the challenges of organizing and representing geographic space, foregrounding geopolitical concerns, the theme of the 27th edition takes le tournant sensible [the sensitive turn].

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.

Winning projects and designers

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. + Tomatsu 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.

Two special mentions
Two projects received a special mention from the jury: À hauteur de tige, by Sarah Bengle and Vivi Lamarre (Qc, Canada); and Threshold of Succession, by Matthew Hickey, Adrian Hutchinson, Michael Ormston-Holloway, and Hannah Wallace-Lund (ON, Canada).

The Jury

This year’s jury was composed of Monique Keller (architect and urban planner EPFL; independent curator), Jean-François Légaré (landscape architect; owner and director, Nomade Paysage; contemporary dance artist), Mélanie Mignault (landscape architect AAPQ FCSLA; partner, NIPpaysage), Alexander Reford (director, International Garden Festival); Ève De Garie-Lamanque (artistic director, International Garden Festival); and François Leblanc (technical coordinator, International Garden Festival).

The visual identity
The visual identity for the current thematic cycle (2025-27) has been entrusted to bureau60a (Quebec, Canada), an independent design studio. The themes of Borders and Mapping Sensitivity proved to be particularly fertile for Simon Guibord and Rachel Monnier. On the one hand, they drew inspiration from cartographic sciences, namely modern cartographic language and symbols. On the other hand, they favoured a biocentric approach, choosing to allude to the dispersion and deposition of pollen in their design. Meaningful, poetic, and subversive, bureau60a’s graphic proposal transcends territorial and temporal barriers.