French designer Patrick Nadeau has created an installation for Italian brand Boffi, consisting of hanging domes covered in living plants.
Called Rainforest, the installation comprises a series of Corian frames held together with cable ties.
A type of hanging Spanish moss called Tillandsias usneoïdes, which doesn't need soil, is draped over these frames.
The domes are suspended from the ceiling and used to light the Boffi product displays.
The installation was displayed during Designer's Days in Paris, the London Design Festval and Milano Design-in-the-City.
Photographs are by Aurélien Mirofle and Fillioux & Fillioux.
Here's some more information from Nadeau:
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This installation is made of tropical plants, the epiphyte one - « Tillandsias usneoïdes » -They are hanging on Corian® structures.
The origin of the tillandsias unsneoïdes comes from rain forests in South America.
The plants are held up by different structures made very simply with thin sticks of Corian (3x12mm section). These ones are naturally bending just in using the flexibility of the material in thin section.
Then they are fiting together with cables tie. It's a basic technique of manufacturing reminiscent of the way of the gardener's work.
These is non-soil plants. They are directly fixed on the branchs of trees and they feed themselves only with the air moisture.
This project takes its place in my present research about “plant design”. It offers a different way of use plants as a real architecture's material.
The Boffi furniture is very minimal, with pure style, essentially composed of elementary volumes in a close relationship with the ground. The installation comes as counterpoint to this aesthetic. It is as light as air, structured by the complex and random geometry of plants.
Paris (Designer’s days) > june 2009
London (Design week) > september 2009
Milan (design-in-the-city) > october 2009
Cologne (Möbelmesse) > january 2010
New-York (Design week) > may 2010