CAHORS – Paris-based Atelier YokYok teamed up with metal sculptor Ulysse Lacoste and Laure Qaremy to design a temporary installation for the 2015 Cahors June Garden Festival. An annual event, taking place throughout the month of June in the south-west of France, the festival reveals twenty-five beautiful gardens with different installations and activities. The collaborative work of Atelier Yok Yok and Lacoste – Les Voutes Filantes (English translation: ‘The Shooting Vaults’) – was one of three winning installation entries in Cahors’ landscape garden competition.

The architects designed a threaded structure in the middle of a sixteenth-century gothic style cloister in St Stephen’s Cathedral. The outdoor garden is divided into four pathways, culminating in a circular central point. Eight archways representing various architectural arch types are placed at either ends of the passages. The archways are linked with blue-hued woven strings, covering the existing passages to create a whimsical dematerialised structure where individuals can stroll beneath.

‘By these suspended Ariadne’s threads, the stroller is guided towards the centre of the lot – a secret cloister,’ explain the architects. This is where walls of threads around the circular central point connect the four tunnels together. Different types of arches – lancet, ogee, semicircular – shape each tunnel-vault differently, while at the same time mirroring the gothic cloister surrounding the installation.

Photo courtesy of Atelier YokYok and Ulysse Lacoste

atelieryokyok.com
ulysselacoste.com