TERRA MESAS
Submission for Concentrico Design Festival 2025
Equal parts ground and table, Terra Mesas invites both nature and people to the picnic. Visitors are brought 1,5 meters above the earth in line with the growing grape vines to pause and experience the authenticity of nature.
Ground, as the site for the picnic blanket is reimagined at various heights. Raised and scaled up, the picnic table simultaneously becomes ground, chair, and railing. The table top is ultimately cast as the stage upon which people and nature play.
Bringing the table to this scale celebrates the communal experience of joy at a shared meal. With various locations to sit at the table while dining on new ground, conversations flow from group to group. Inspired by the field team’s “las diez” lunch over the smoldering vine shoots, the tables provide a surface for the beautiful simplicity of bread, wine, and a little bit of meat, the recipe for the quintessential meal.
As the Ebro River embraces the Viña Lanciano estate, a Garnica plywood screen shelters the structure while meandering out of view. The journey from before is shielded behind while the views ahead highlight the stillness of the Sierra de Cantabria. Perched upon posts, the entire form delicately meets the ground much like a bird temporarily nests amongst the tree branches.
Recognizing the beauty of twenty-two unique microclimates within the Viña Lanciano estate, the table is deconstructed into twenty-two planter beds to be sited in each vineyard plot. Giving a second and sustained life to the installation, the planters and corresponding bug hotel assemblages provide new and welcome habitats for native flora and fauna while sustaining life for mites, chrysopids, ladybirds, and capsid bugs that are crucial to the health of the vines. Like the aging process of wine, Terra Mesas gets better with time.
