BLOOM BOOM ROOM | Les Jardins de Métis, Quebec, Canada
Collaboration with Nikole Bouchard & Milo Bonacci
Entry for 2015 International Garden Festival presented at the Reford Gardens
The Bloom Boom Room elevates the productive ecologies often found on the forest floor and makes them accessible at the human scale. Several amorphous, trunk-like towers are clustered throughout a dense forest grove, each cast entirely from natural waste materials and industrial byproducts. The towers are seeded with oyster mushroom spores and alfalfa seeds. The subtle, varying tower microclimates will inform where each ecology will grow. The mushrooms will thrive on the shady, damper north and under sides of the structures, while the illuminated contours will sprout with vibrant alfalfa greens.
This project seeks to arouse the curiosity of by-passers as it educates them of the natural processes that typically remain unseen on the forest floor. At the end of the project’s lifespan, the edibles will be harvested and donated to local food kitchens. The remaining towers will continue the process that they were designed to illustrate - They will decompose and return to the earth, leaving behind only enriched soil to fuel the process anew.