Vitra’s Water Garden Starts With a Factory Roof

At the Vitra Campus in Weil am Rhein, a new pond begins on a factory roof. Rainwater is collected from the adjacent building, directed into the landscape and held within the Water Garden designed by Belgian landscape architect Bas Smets.

Officially opened during Vitra’s July 4 summer festival, the garden is part of a wider masterplan that treats the campus as a living organism. The first phase, completed in 2023, introduced approximately 8,000 young trees in dense micro-forests inspired by the Miyawaki method.

The new phase adds water as habitat and infrastructure. Climate-resilient planting surrounds a pond intended for fish and birds, while the soil excavated to create it was reused as a berm that shields the garden from the nearby road. Construction waste becomes topography rather than leaving the site.

A ceramic fountain by Hella Jongerius, The Three Graces, introduces three shark-like heads from her Angry Animals series. Their expressive presence prevents the ecological programme from becoming visually pious. Play, craft and water management occupy the same space.

Furniture and architecture are distributed through the planting: a bench by Balkrishna Doshi, Jean Prouvé’s Maison Démontable 4×4 and an outdoor sculpture by Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen. The landscape connects these objects without turning them into isolated icons.

The Water Garden is useful because its environmental logic can be read. Roof, pipe, pond, berm and plants form a visible chain. Instead of presenting sustainability as certification behind the scenes, the campus allows water management to become part of the visitor’s spatial experience.