This project, the first of the two at Château La Coste in Provence, follows an invitation to the Norman Foster Foundation to contribute a work that would add to their installations of art and architecture.

Set within the spectacular grounds of the Château La Coste winery in the south of France, the Norman Foster Foundation is developing the design for the Observation Deck, a structure that perches lightly on the grapevines and hovers above them allowing for breath-taking views of the dramatic landscape, the surrounding countryside, the estate, its vineyards, and installations as well as the extensive collection of art and architecture in the estate.

Emerging from an ancient roman road and peaking over the trees, this sculptural insect-like structure will be made of coloured lightweight metal and incorporate an innovative self-powered water mist cooling feature for its visitors. The slender steel structure, sitting gently on its site like a giant green insect, is a symbolic staircase to the sky. The work is deliberately ambiguous—visually it is an abstract sculpture set in the landscape, but it is also inhabited and functions as part of a publicly accessible pedestrian network—in that sense, it can be considered a work of infrastructure.