L’art du Jardin in Paris is the French equivalent of the Chelsea Flower show (UK) and the Royal Melbourne Garden Show (AU), with the only difference that it does not award medals. As part of a European marketing campaign Qantas commissioned our practice to design and construct an Australian Garden for the show. The brief was simple: represent Australia with the colours red, blue and green. The entrance to the garden depicted a runway with integrated floor lights for night activities and opening cocktail party. From there the visitor was guided through a series of rooms:

• The Red Centre, with red soil, grasses together with magpies and emus.
• The beaches with sand, coral and surf boards.
• The rainforest with tree ferns, mosses and a creek.

All three were separated by a passageway representing a Qantas plane. The main challenges were the distance and availability of Australian material in Europe.
A large proportion of the garden was sourced from Australia and freighted free of charge by Qantas. A variety of Australian photographers and Aboriginal painters were represented (with their permission and payment of royalties) on printed textile banners which framed the garden. Only the soils (sourced from south of France) and most of the plants (except the tree ferns) were sourced in France and England. Due to tight timeline and budget, all the preparation was done in Australia and culminated in 3-day construction frenzy on site. The bulk of the site work and coordination should be credited to Brett Foulis who was working for us at the time.
The garden was a great success and attracted the attention of all visitors.