Memorial in Novasem

To honour the recently deceased founder of a seed company, the Mexican design team built a memorial garden between the production tower and a future office building, a place for contemplation beside a walkway to the production areas. Trees with bright yellow spring flowers stand in a bed of gravel that also lets rainwater soak into the ground.

Local masons build stone walls with great skill, and stone was chosen as one of the most primitive materials still at hand. A small vertical stone enclosure, like a menhir, marks the sacred place and is the source of a watercourse that rises from the ground, fills a small pool and runs slowly down a steel channel. Openings in the walls frame views.

The water passes through a stone-paved island with a small lavender garden and a bench, to be shaded once the trees grow, and ends in a half-buried chamber, the grave. Gravel and I-beams laid on the ground, both common in industrial building, give the garden an almost surreal note.