The Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) holds an annual Hampton Court Palace Flower Show. This year, in her first exhibition Alex Rainford-Roberts of Alex Rainford-Roberts Garden and Landscape Design won the Silver Gilt metal award in the Conceptual Gardens Category. Sponsored by Dibond aluminum composite, the immersion Apeiron: The Dibond Garden creates a unique user experience. Aimed to showcase via Instagram, the garden is designed within a COR-TEN steel box covered in mirrored Dibond aluminum panels. The reflective material creates the illusion of an infinite garden, producing a dreamscape.

Apeiron: The Dibond Garden contains an intimacy where the user is surrounded by both a meadow and their reflection. The RHS featured the garden describing, “The Breedon gravel path that travels in and around the garden follows a figure-of-eight. It carries the visitor from the finite exterior, and its sombre planting of deep purples and pinks, through the centre of the mirrored and infinite landscape – an apeiron – of the dream-like meadow planting of pale-pinks and blues.”

photography © Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)

Each aspect of the garden’s design was purposeful, meant to complement the Hampton Court Palace grounds. Mimicking the intricate brickwork with the use of rusted steel, utilizing a Breedon gravel path to emulate the “network of paths” that surround the Palace, even the boxy shape of the enclosure is meant to derive similarities to the palace quads.

photography © Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)

Built by Bowood Landscapes Ltd & Edwards and White Ltd, the project differs from the other conceptual designs wanting to create an experience that can be shared. The RHS further describe, “The planting is light and ephemeral, contrasting with the stark metal exterior. The garden references dreamscapes and memories: the illusion created by the mirrored room means the meadow exists in the eye of the beholder. Each visitor is reflected within their own meadow scene, encouraging them to experience the garden through their own senses rather than via a camera viewfinder.”

photography © Royal Horticultural Society (RHS)

Dibond has the rigidity and lightness of weight to make it perfect for outdoor use. Its ability to withstand weathering, further allows the material to adapt to any outdoor space. Often used in exterior signage, the Apeiron Garden is a fantastical example of how a material can be elevated by a designer’s vision.

information and photography courtesy of RHS