nomad studio suspends an aerial garden at the contemporary art museum of saint louis

within the courtyard of the contemporary art museum of saint louis, landscape architecture firm nomad studio has installed a kinetic living sculpture suspended overhead visitors and passersby. ‘green air’ is an aerial garden that initiates a material, spacial and formal relationship with the firm’s previous intervention called ‘green varnish’.

all images courtesy of nomad studio / photo © david johnson

‘green air’ surrounds visitors in an immersive hanging garden, floating above an ever-changing display of shadows formed from a steel canopy overhead. in response its 2015 project ‘green varnish’ — a monumental green fabric composed of thousands of succulent plants — nomad studio has modeled this latest piece as its inverse — both in form and intention. upon its deconstruction, elements from ‘green varnish were reutilized to build ‘green air’, creating a continuity and dialogue between the two pieces and the visitors who experience them. what was once a solid piece of material anchored to the ground plane is now a fluid volume suspended from an elevated plane.

photo © david johnson

in its materiality, ‘green air’ comprises a systematic yet etherial arrangement of tillandsias that hang from thousands of slices of repurposed wood, each suspended from the courtyard’s steel canopy. swaying slowly in the breeze and adding ever-evolving shadows to the ground, the installation bears a transformational impact at the heart of the contemporary art museum of saint louis.

photo © alise o’brien

photo © david johnson

photo © david johnson

photo © sarah rothberg

photo © david johnson

photo © sarah rothberg

photo © david johnson

photo © david johnson

photo © david johnson

‘green varnish | photo © david johnson

project info: 

location: contemporary art museum of saint louis (CAM)

landscape architects: nomad studio


consultants: lia engineering
installation team: jessi cerutti & caleb hauck, molly brennan, david burnett, key chen, ryan doyle, zac farmer, joshua gann, matthew hannon, emily keefauver, eric kobal, marianne laury, chris lucas, eric repice, adrienne sandusky, bret schneider, margot shafran, laura schatzman, jonathan watt, jamie wiechens, bin yang, eileen zhang.
maintenance team: st. louis master gardeners

Save