Catching Aground - a botanic garden at the entrance to Mont-Saint-Michel.
The bay of Mont-Saint-Michel is a shifting ecotone sitting between land and sea; a far-reaching pan of sand and marshland that sinks and rises with a tidal variance of 14m.
The island-commune’s current entrance is a concrete surface – an apron whose organic deposits, caught aground from the shifting tides, are brushed away at the start of each day. We propose that the apron be broken up, that these remnants be allowed to dwell, accumulate, and grow, changing the gateway to Mont Saint Michel from a static to a dynamic landscape.
Our project suggests a Janus-like de-construction of the apron, one side is untouched other than pools cut in the concrete to wash muddy feet, on the other, concrete rubble is quarried and fenced between trunks of felled poplar trees to form gabion groynes. These poplars are the waste result of the de-polderisation of the surrounding landscape. Anchored to a timber walkway, these armatures sift organic deposits and silt from the bay and open the door to a landscape of collection – a microcosmic botanic garden. Placement of the armatures will shift over time in response to natural weathering and the changing requirements of the field stations that provide scientists’ residences. Parts intended to endure these sustained forces are constructed from granite quarried from the nearby Chausey islands and transported by boat.
Catching Aground challenges the mainstream practice of design for maximum longevity; instead advocating a construction culture of observation, salvage, repair and relinquishment, drawing on the natural rhythms found in the landscapes it will form around itself. It argues that architectural interventions can act as biodiversity multipliers, creating habitats for wildlife at every scale and across the breadth of landscapes that their built materials are drawn from.
