1. www.sgd.org.uk GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL 15
Working across three continents, French designers Arnaud Maurières
and Eric Ossart have built a reputation for imaginative projects
that respond to local climates and conditions
Pioneer species
Words: Darryl Moore Photographs: Maurières & Ossart
international

2. GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL www.sgd.org.uk16
“The duo believe that
one cannot be a designer
without first being
a gardener”
T
he dynamic French design duo Arnaud
Maurières and Eric Ossart have been
working together since 1985, amassing
an impressive portfolio of unique gardens and
public spaces, which reflect an ongoing focused
and idiosyncratic response to placemaking. A
commission in the late 1980s from Jack Lang,
then Minister of Culture and mayor of the city
of Blois, to work on the town’s public gardens,
resulted in a new type of urban planting which
replaced the over-familiar ‘mosaiculture’ of
municipal bedding schemes. Drawing upon
agricultural traditions and meadow plantings, they
created a novel design style which soon found
itself spreading throughout France, establishing
a fertile grounding from which they have since
flourished. Since then their itinerant career has
produced projects spread across three continents,
adapting to local conditions and evolving distinct
particularities in accord with each locale.
Their widely acknowledged horticultural
abilities, honed over decades, have been
underpinned by the belief that one cannot be
a designer without first being a gardener. This
basic tenet has manifested itself in three very
personal and formidable projects, in which they
have created not only their home, but also unique
and distinctive horticultural habitats. These have
been experimental and educational playgrounds,
in which they have been free to develop their own
design language unfettered by the constraints
of any other stakeholders. It has also allowed
them to delve deep into their fascination with
the various iterations of Paradise gardens, which
have provided formative design blueprints for
gardens across the Magreb and Mediterranean
regions for many centuries. As topologies of
distinct utility and scale, the bustan, the gulistan
and riyad have been forms which Maurières and
Ossart have reinterpreted within contemporary
contexts, using them as means to structure space
and deploy plants in a sensuous and exuberant
manner, creating gardens resplendent with
flavour, scent and colour.
Defining ‘Ethnistory’
Their first personal garden, Les Fournials in Tarn,
started in 1996, allowed them the space to play
with a large-scale country vernacular, developing
and enriching the planting palette until they
sold the property in 2003. Their second home
marked a distinct cultural shift towards their
Arabic inspiration, with a relocation to Morocco.
The house and garden, Al Hossoun, located just
outside the ancient city of Taroudant, provided
an opportunity to put into practice the idea of
‘Ethnistory’, which they’d been defining for over
a decade. Their concept builds upon the holistic
approach of artisanal practices, such as is evident
in pottery and rug-making, which fuse design
with local materials and knowledge. Utilising this
approach, they drew on the local skills network
to fuse the traditional with the contemporary
and intimately integrate the garden with the
architecture. Experimenting with rammed earth
meant the material excavated from the site not
only provided the material for the house, but also
defined the garden’s form of sunken areas and
swimming pool.
A series of enclosed spaces allowed for the
creation of a steppe-style environment, which
featured a more spontaneous and naturalistic
looking approach to planting. Yet whilst many
plants were local, Maurières and Ossart were
keen to avoid endemic cliche, employing plants
chosen from regions with similar climatic
and ecological suitability, many of which they
had collected as seeds or cuttings on travels,
from places such as Madagascar and Yemen.
Experiments at Al Hossoun with
international

3. www.sgd.org.uk GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL
PagE 15 Introduced
agaves blend with the
rich existing flora,
including cacti and
grasses at Los
Garambullos
Facing Page Discreet
interventions of
indigenous plants
amidst the existing
landscape reveals a
new approach to
planting design
clockwise from
toP The long
swimming pool
provides a visual line
to the landscape and
horizon beyond; the
architectural forms of
Agave weberi
punctuate the
southern side of the
garden; the organic
shapes of Opuntia sp
and Myrtillocactus
geometrizans contrast
with the orthogonal
geometry of the
architecture

4. 18 GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL www.sgd.org.uk18 GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL www.sgd.org.uk
this horticulturally sympathetic approach
were developed in other Moroccan projects
including Dar Igdad, which employed a vast
meadow of naturalistic appearance composed of
species of American agaves, African euphorbias
and Saharan grasses. Whilst on a smaller scale
at Dar Andrew the same plants were used but
laid out in a more mannered style with distinct
blocks of the same plants, used to created effects
of form and colour, referencing the work of
Roberto Burle Marx.
Influence of Barragán
Their latest endeavour has lead them to Mexico,
homeland of another of their longtime design
influences, Luis Barragán. Los Garambullos is
a 40-hectare project, created between 2011 and
2013, which again features a symbiotic relationship
between house and garden. Located 15 km from
San Miguel de Allende, it lies 300 miles south of
theTropicofCancer,atanaltitudeof1,800min
theMexicanaltiplanoregionofGuanajuato.The
propertyisinaprotectedarea,recognisingthe
importanceoftheabundantnativefloraandfauna.
Asaconsequenceitwasnecessarytonotonlycreate
adesignfullyintegratedintothewiderlandscape,
butalsotoprotecttheplantswithwoodenpalisades
whilstthebuildingswereconstructedfromstone
extractedfromahillonthesite.
The local topography provides a natural
steppe environment, with local black soil which
is fertile but difficult to work. Consequently the
garden’s design marks a distinct development
in the designers’ planting style, with a high
degree of sensitivity deployed. Whereas their
gardens in France and Morocco relied upon
the symbolic value of their structure, with the
planting supplying a sense of spontaneous
artifice, in Mexico the native vegetation on site
provides an opportunity to intervene in a much
more natural way. As a response the designers
have come up with a scheme which suggests a
distinctly unique planting paradigm.
The rich indigenous flora surrounding the house
is composed of various shrubs, mesquite (Prosopis
sp) and cacti, mainly Opuntia sp and Myrtillocactus
geometrizans (‘garambullos’ in Mexico, hence the
name of the property), and grasses (Rhynchelytrum
roseum). The designers have subtly accented this
with large quantities of other native flora including
cacti, agaves, salvias and shrubs, whilst limiting the
growth of invasive plants to keep very open areas
suitable for bulbous plants. Many of the plants
used to augment the scheme have been specifically
grown by local nurseries from seeds of wild
plants harvested by Maurières and Ossart in the
neighbouring regions.
The rigid orthogonal formality of the
architecture is sharply contrasted against the
loose array of planting, accented with strong
sculptural form. The design refuses to be confined
to polite gesture or floral dominance, but instead
appeals to a sense of assumed appropriateness,
with the geometric conceit of the house providing
a suggestive counterpoint to the organic forms
“Los Garambullos
features a symbiotic
relationship between
house and garden”
international

5. Facing Page The
house, constructed
from stone extracted
from the site, subtly
embeds itself in the
surrounding
environment
toP The temperate
semi-arid climate
balances moderate
winters with hot
rainy summers
which bring forth the
lush vegetation
Bottom Sheltered by
the house and
planting, the terrace
provides an expansive
spatial oasis of calm

6. GARDEN DESIGN JOURNAL www.sgd.org.uk20
which envelope it. The confident nature of
the planting doesn’t need to compete with its
surrounds, as it already is an integral part the wider
environment, and as a consequence this holistic
approach denies the possibility of any kind of
ecotone demarcating garden and landscape.
Embracing existing landscapes
A refrained reference to their earlier work
is evident in the scattered planting within
an internal courtyard, suggestive of their
Moroccan home and Arabic courtyard culture.
But rather than trying to recreate Paradise, at
Los Garambullos they have embraced the one
they have found in the existing landscape and
selectively enhanced it. The garden marks not
only another benchmark in their professional
trajectory, but also proffers a blueprint for
ecologically sensitive planting design.
The local climate is balanced between the
summer rainy season, from June to September,
during which the semi-arid landscape is
transformed into an intense picture of green
vegetation, and the winter which is dry and sunny
but relatively cold, with occasional drops below
freezing to -5°C. The most spectacular season is
the end of the rainy season, in late September and
October, when all the annuals such as thitonias
and cosmos are in bloom. The abundance of
summer rain and high humidity means that the
plantings are only watered for the first couple
of years to acclimatise, before being left to fend
for themselves.
Working across continents has provided
Maurières and Ossart with valuable experiences of
both plants and cultures, and a wide perspective
which marries the two in innovative ways. The
sense of progression within their work reflects
an investigative verve that fuels their partnership,
one which refuses to be satiated. And as intrepid
nomads, they are already in the process of moving
on, selling up at Los Garambullos and engaging
in creating a veritable garden of botanical
delights on the shore of the Chapala Lake, close
to Guadanalajara in the Jalisco region. Given the
originality of the planting at Los Garambullos, all
eyes will be on the pair, charting their next move, as
outstanding design pioneers.
www.maurieres-ossart.com
*Los Garambullos is available for rental, for
information go to: worldlocations.com
international
“The sense of progression
within their work reflects
an investigative verve that
fuels their partnership”
top Endemic salvias
provide bursts of bright
colour
bottom Stone steps
cantilever out through a
meadow of grasses