In the heart of Botanic Garden Meise, a former castle domain, there is a small island in the middle of the pond of Boechout Castle. An ideal place to house a new botanical collection with various water, bank and marsh plants and trees from all over the world. The winning competition design by Gijs Van Vaerenbergh architects i.s.m. Atelier Arne Deruyter proposed to realize the project in 2 conceptual steps.
To make the water and marsh garden accessible and to enable crossing from the shore, a 400 m long, meandering concrete platform was first poured through the island. By pouring directly on the existing island (and on deeper pile foundations), one large structure was created in a simple 'in situ' manner that traverses the entire water garden. The existing island served as 'formwork' for this path.
The excavation and raising in various places then brought the water into the original island. The island thus changed into an archipelago of several islands, with a 'microtopography' of levels just below and above the water surface, creating a broad spectrum of diverse water and swamp biotopes: a mangrove, a fern moss, an alder marsh forest, a Japanese water garden, an indoor pool...
(Tourism Flanders)