Bas Smets : Climates of Landscape
Le Magasin Électrique
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Bas Smets is a globally recognized landscape architect whose practice redefines what is possible in the face of climate change.
Climates of Landscape is his first exhibition at LUMA Arles that brings together landscape architecture, design and ecological thinking to demonstrate how urban ecologies can be conceived and constructed. The exhibition explores the way to rethink ecosystems and our relationship to the environment. For Smets, a city can be understood as an aggregation of artificial climates. Buildings alter wind patterns and modulate sunlight exposure, while streetscapes modify runoff water and affect soil permeability. Landscape architecture can create microclimates with intention, treating the city as a living laboratory. Informed by the detailed study of how plants and other organisms transform their environments over time, landscape design introduces vegetation into an urban fabric as the agent of change and transformation. Through carefully constructed landscapes, new climates can emerge, making the built environment more resilient in the face of the steadily growing crisis of general climatic conditions.
The exhibition begins with a selection of three major projects that show the ways in which landscape architecture can respond to different challenges of the climate crises. From the enhancement of outdoor comfort and reduction of the perceived temperature around Notre-Dame in Paris, to the creation of an embankment park that mitigates with the rise of water levels in Antwerp, to the transformation of the Parc des Ateliers for LUMA Arles into a self-sustaining ecology, the work of Bas Smets reflects a commitment to solution-based design grounded in scientific research. Just as natural ecosystems alter the land on which they develop, urban ecologies have the capacity to reshape the environment in powerful ways. At the thin interface between an uncertain climate above and a malleable geology below, urban ecologies are critical zones of life. Maintained and reproduced carefully, these ecologies can be resources for a sustainable future.
The Parc des Ateliers, part of LUMA Arles, plays a significant role in the exhibition. The transformation of this former industrial wasteland into a self-sustaining ecosystem–the largest climatic project of Bas Smets to date-is not only a great engineering project but an opportunity to better inhabit a city, redefining the relationship between nature, architecture and urbanism. With an emphasis on ecological resilience, climate adaptation and the emotional impact of space, Smets integrates topography, water, vegetation and human experience to create a park that becomes synonymous with the future and how we live with and within nature. Through microclimate design, Smets’ approach is rooted in understanding the specific environmental conditions of the site in Arles-sun exposure, wind patterns, humidity and temperature variations-and using this information to introduce specific types of vegetation that produce a microclimate naturally. The plants become the protagonists of the park, which in turn becomes a tool for environmental performance and positive transformation, making it both technically innovative and deeply attuned to human and ecological needs.
Climates of Landscape draws upon two decades of innovative projects and provides an immersion into never-before-seen material on the conceptualization and production of landscape architecture today, at a moment when its importance is more pertinent than ever.
Bas Smets
Bas Smets, born in 1975 in Belgium, is a landscape architect with a multidisciplinary background that has shaped his unique approach to creating innovative and sustainable urban spaces. He founded his firm in 2007 in Brussels which has since built over 50 international projects, including the LUMA Parc des Ateliers in Arles, the Thurn & Taxis Park in Brussels, the Sunken Garden in London, and the Himara Waterfront in Albania. In 2022, Smets won the prestigious international competition to redesign the public space surrounding Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Smets' approach is characterized by his concept of "Augmented Landscapes," which utilizes natural processes to create new microclimates. He often collaborates with artists and scientists, reflecting his commitment to interdisciplinary innovation.
2023, Smets was appointed Professor in Practice at the Graduate School of Design of Harvard University, where he continues to explore inventive ways to transform urban environments into ecological systems capable of mitigating climate change. His visionary approach to landscape architecture offers a promising path forward for making cities more resilient to the challenges of the climate crisis.
The landscaped park designed by landscape architect Bas Smets
The gardens and pond at LUMA Arles were designed by landscape architect Bas Smets. This public park, which spans 4 hectares, is the largest in the city of Arles. It was conceived by integrating more than 80,000 trees, shrubs, and plantssourced from the three surrounding biotopes: the Camargue, the Crau, and the Alpilles.
The landscaped park also features artworks and sculptures created by various artists.