Christophe Ponceau, French landscape architect, curator, and scenographer will conduct a Detroit-based workshop on urban vegetal resurgences with MS Conservation students on Thursday, October 24th.

Ponceau's studio, Rue du Repos, founded with Mélanie Drevet, engages landscape architecture at a variety of scales. Their most recent project include the Jardin du FRAC Centre à Orléans, the Hôtel Sezz St Tropez, and the Voies Navigable de France canal de Bourgogne Lock Keepers landscape. In parallel, his curatorial projects, launched through his participation in the 2000 Jardin Planétaire exhibition at the Grande Halle of la Villette, explore the potentials of temporary installation and exhibition as a mode of speculative landscape design.

His research and practice situates landscape at the forefront of design and art. In the European context, while gardens are ubiquitous, their designs rarely confront contemporaneity as an experimental mode of aesthetic and public engagement. Few creative gardens receive mediatized attention, even when they accompany highly publicized architectural works.

In response, Ponceau seeks to modify the perception of gardens in the collective imaginary and to associate them plainly with contemporary design. Since 2002, as a curator and creative director working at the intersection of landscape, photography, graphic design, and installation, he has produced a series of consequential projects that experiment with the full potential of landscape as a scenographic design practice, most notably: the rehabilitation of the domaine de la Ferté Vidame in Eure-et- Loir, and the French pavilion at the International Exhibition at Saragossa, Spain.

Currently, he is the curator of the quinquennale Lausanne Jardins (with the designer Adrien Rovero). The upcoming edition is scheduled to launch in 2014.

Ponceau completing his interior architecture degree at the l’école Boulle and received a DPLG in architecture , before establishing a close association with Gilles Clement and turning to landscape architecture practice.