City Garden
A 15-metre window installation in transparent vinyl for landscape practice LUC, made for the London Festival of Architecture.
OVERVIEW
A 15-metre window installation for LUC, a landscape and planning practice, made to mark their move into a new Waterloo office during the London Festival of Architecture. Along a hard-landscaped city street, it brings a pocket of green out of the office and into the road.
THE BRIEF
LUC wanted to celebrate their new office during the festival and, more than that, to show what they actually do, landscape and planning, right there on the window. The idea was to bring their work to the street: a piece of nature emerging from the studio into one of the hardest-landscaped stretches of the city.
THE CONCEPT
The piece is built from oversized leaves that wrap the 15-metre glass, designed so you feel under the canopy looking in from the street, and among the leaves looking out from the desks inside. To keep it subtle and let daylight through, I worked in very coloured vinyl rather than paint: three main colours, with the leaves overlapping so new shades and textures appear wherever they cross. Each leaf was cut from the approved sketch and applied directly to the window.
THE OUTCOME
It was meant to last a month for the festival. It became part of the office's identity instead and stayed. What started as a temporary installation is now a permanent pocket of green on the street.
