When Belgian architect Sven Mouton and his students from the Scheppersinstituut Wetteren unveiled their bamboo tensegrity structure at Floraliën 2026, it stopped people in their tracks. Not just because it looked unlike anything else in the show, but because nobody could figure out how it was standing.
The installation, called Connect-in(g)-Gardens, was built with structural Guadua angustifolia poles produced by Guadua Bamboo SAS in Colombia and distributed in Europe by Masters of Bamboo. It went on to win 1st prize in the Community category and 2nd prize for best large stand at one of Europe’s most prestigious horticultural events, held every 4 years in Ghent, Belgium.
What Is a Bamboo Tensegrity Structure?
Tensegrity (short for tensional integrity) is a structural principle developed by Buckminster Fuller in which rigid compression members and flexible tension cables work together to create a stable, self-supporting form. The key rule: no two compression members ever touch each other. The bamboo poles push outward, the cables pull inward. Neither can do its job without the other.
The result looks physically impossible. Elements appear to float in mid-air, held up by nothing visible. In practice, the geometry is doing all the work.
This makes tensegrity both a technical challenge and a genuinely striking design statement. It is not a common technique in bamboo construction, which is part of what made this installation so remarkable at Floraliën.
How Connect-in(g)-Gardens Brings Tensegrity to Life
The title Connect-in(g)-Gardens was not just wordplay. The structure was built around the theme of Floraliën 2026, which was connection, and Mouton took that literally.
At the heart of the installation, a tree appears to float inside the bamboo framework. This references mycorrhiza, the underground fungal network through which trees exchange nutrients, water, and chemical signals. In a forest, plants are not isolated. They support each other through a web of invisible connections beneath the soil. The tensegrity structure makes that same logic visible: stability born not from mass, but from the relationship between components.
The design also carries a reference to Ghent itself. The city skyline, and specifically the dragon atop the Belfort tower, is abstracted into the geometry of the bamboo framework. The poles seem to grow upward past the city’s towers, suggesting how nature and architecture can be woven together rather than set apart.
Why Guadua Bamboo for a Tensegrity Structures?
A bamboo tensegrity structure places very specific demands on the material. Every pole in the system is a compression member, which means each one carries load. If pole quality varies, the geometry shifts and the system loses integrity. There is very little margin.
Guadua angustifolia handles this well. It has one of the highest compressive strength-to-weight ratios of any natural building material, and when harvested at the right maturity and properly treated, it performs consistently across a full structure. The poles used in Connect-in(g)-Gardens came directly from our production facility in Colombia, treated against insects and fungi, and selected for structural use.
This is the same material Sven Mouton used for the 28-meter bamboo tower at Planckendael Zoo, currently the largest structural bamboo building in Europe. For that project and this one, the choice of Guadua was not aesthetic, it was structural.
Bamboo Tensegrity: An Award-Winning School Project
Students from the 5th and 6th year of the construction program at Scheppersinstituut Wetteren built it alongside Mouton, who teaches construction techniques at the school. This was a real school project, not a professional studio with a big budget.
Wim, Goedele, and Tom handled all the planting and greenery. Ignace took care of the lighting, which turned out to be where the structure showed its character most clearly. The nocturne visits after dark brought out the geometry in ways that daylight did not. Tommy and Kenneth worked the steel connections that interface between bamboo pole and cable.
For a school project competing against top florists, ornamental growers, landscape architects and artists, two prizes at Floraliën 2026 is a result that speaks for itself.
