hermès weaves a garden of life-size bamboo caves from recycled brushes in qatar

Hermès taps Alexis Tricoire for Doha Gardens

 

Hermès opens the doors of its flagship store in Doha, Qatar by ushering visitors into the wonderland of designer Alexis Tricoire, who goes above and beyond, and quite literally, as he crafts hills of bamboo caves inside the luxury brand’s flagship store, all made from recycled brushes. Named ‘Doha Gardens,’ the landscape sits in front of the Persic Golf where the architecture cocoons visitors into what doubles as immersive installations.

 

The designer and Hermès intend each alcove in Doha Gardens to have a different design. One has a towering leafless tree whose spiraling branches are wrapped with orange lighting while another acts as a stargazing station where the ceiling is carpeted with 500 circular recycled brushes, slowly diffusing and sprawling across the woven dome. From here, the journey inside Hermès’ installations continues.

images courtesy of Alexis Tricoire

 

 

Natural landscapes inside bamboo domes

 

Hermès and Alexis Tricoire invite the visitors to pass under an upside-down garden where two giant anacondas await them. The serpents snake through the ceiling and crawl in front of three dancing birds flying over the hills landscape.

 

What Tricoire wants the visitors to truly gaze at comes through a waterfall cascading and shimmering in metallic blue. The overlapping strands of recycled brushes form a stack of woven materials, resembling a horsetail but more wistful and lightweight.

 

 

Turning a corner, a cloudy landscape looms over the visitors where they can witness a monkey peacefully sitting on a makeshift land. A number of luminous headdresses lead them outside Doha Gardens, a path that will introduce them to a flock of mockingbirds. From the terrace facing the sea and behind the bamboo hills, Doha’s skyline appears for the visitors to see.

 

 

Tricoire looks into materializing the urgency to preserve biodiversity and does so in a way he knows best: curating installations that can encourage viewers to think through the importance of ecology, just like one of the cores of Doha Gardens with Hermès.

 

While visitors might not always acknowledge the privilege they have for not experiencing the full effect of the ecological decline, they might soon face the discomfort it can give once the materials and resources they use become depleted.

 

In a way, Tricoire, along with Hermès, is making visitors think twice, even thrice, on whether or not they are doing their part to recycle industrial products.