2 minute read
'Winter in the Garden' Installation
As part of Winter Fest at Garvan Woodland Gardens in late 2020, 43 third-year interior design students designed and built several “Winter in the Garden” sitespecific installations in the garden’s Camellia Way area. The camellia blooms inspired the overall color scheme. In the fairly open areas, large trees spaced widely apart were used to support suspended installations. Smaller areas in the under-canopy of the camellia trees called for more intimate, scaled experiences.
Students used a wide range of commonly found and recycled materials to create their installations, such as colored rope, rope lights, hundreds of strands of LED lights and LED spotlights from the garden’s inventory. They also used 2-by-2-inch wood framing, quarter-inch steel rods, various sizes of steel tubing, galvanized metal, plumbing pipe, acrylic sheets, PVC tubing, metal goat fencing panels, ripstop nylon and plastic drinking cups. Galvanized wire and horse fence tensioners were used for suspended items, with the trees on site providing all the structural elements.
This project was part of the students’ Professional Practice for Interior Design course, led by Carl Matthews, professor and head of the Department of Interior Design, in fall 2020. It required students to develop a broad range of skills and knowledge gained in the course — such as project management, schedule production and management, budgeting, client communications, personnel management, service to the public, schematic design, design development, design implementation, design presentation, design
Photos by Julia Mann
photography, team building and conflict resolution.
The first installation that visitors encountered was an 8-by-24-foot canopy suspended about 14 feet off the ground over the sidewalk intersection. Students wove colored rope and colored LED rope lights to create a plaid pattern inspired by holiday clothing and décor. They chose to use specific colors — red, pink, orange and white — based upon the blooms of the camellia flowers that visitors would experience along Camellia Way.
Other installations used primarily white lights and were inspired by various frozen water crystals — such as snowballs, snowflakes, icicles, ice curtains and sleet. One installation was positioned far from the main circulation path and was an abstract representation of snow-covered Ozark mountains.
About midway down Camellia Way, students created an installation of multi-colored fabric rectangular pylons (from 2 feet to 8 feet in height). They covered these pylons in various colors of ripstop nylon, but the colors shifted through internally lit LED spotlights cycling through the full color spectrum. This installation created a contrast to the otherwise organic nature of the site. The installation in the final zone, titled “Dinner for Wood Nymphs,” centered around a large ombré chandelier (in red, pink and white) surrounded by internally lit, overscaled dining chairs.
