In Cleveland, a Garden Designed With Heart

Landscape was designed and built in collaboration with NBBJ.

Staff -- Interior Design, 2/1/2007

Visitors to the Cleveland Clinic's new Heart Center in Ohio may not be care free, but the center's arrival garden features a design that aims to make their hearts sing. Designed and built by landscape design firm NBBJ and the artists at Joel Berman Glass Studios, the program called for a contemporary representation of the elements found in classical gardens: a flower bed, hedge, pool, and garden wall.

During the day, visitors see a tranquil, soothing landscape. At night, the garden wall--Berman's contribution--is lit from within by a series of colored lights that cause the sculpture to radiate and glow.

An abstraction of the archetypal garden wall, the sculpture is made from textured, cast-glass elements. The artists used the Bricks texture from the studio's Bricks, Boards, Sticks and Stones collection to represent what it calls "the quintessential building material." The appliqué pieces are an evocation of sedimentary rock found in Ohio, according to Joel Berman Glass Studios, which is based in Vancouver and designs and manufactures kiln-cast, handcrafted glass art for the architectural and design community.