In Quebec, designers Thilo Folkerts and Rodney LaTourelle have built a literal garden of books in the middle of a forest.
As you can see by the photo embedded above (via Folkerts), the project used about 40,000 books, wood plates, and live mushrooms to create an organic statement about books and conservation. The books will gradually decompose as the mushrooms grow, returning these literary creations to the earth.
Here’s more from Arch Daily: “The Jardin de la Connaissance is built from a large quantity of discarded books that form walls, benches, and carpets. Based on an open compositional principle, these elements are assembled to create a garden space, integrating it with the site and the structure of the forest. The orthogonal organization is reminiscent of a Neo-Plastic composition from the early 20th Century, invoking an optimistic orientation based on ‘primary’ elements. And yet, this ‘utopian’ notion is countered by the gradual decomposition of the paper material.”