Night gardens are spaces for dreaming. The design team at dwg. transformed a stretch of Austin’s urban creek into a dream about that creek’s potential.
The garden was planted with an ephemeral, nine-day bloom of 80,000 fluorescent survey flags, which were secured along a section of embankment and creek shallows at the edge of Waller Creek, an under recognized, natural feature of Austin’s urban ecology. The bright pink flags glowed as visitors wandered through the field of blooms, made lively with a custom recording of crickets, frogs, and hooting owls, composed to amplify the sounds of Waller Creek’s creatures. The ambient sound, and varied site topography, made for a fully immersive experience.
Night Garden was on display in November 2017 during the Waller Creek Conservancy’s annual Creek Show, a nine-night event featuring six, light-based art installations, intended to bring attention to the future revitalization and transformation of Waller Creek into a series of urban parks. dwg. is delighted to serve as the local landscape architect on the project team designing this new Waller Creek.
Over 20,000 members of the Austin community walked along Waller Creek to view the works of art. Following Creek Show, the survey flags were collected and donated to Treefolks – a local organization dedicated to the reforestation of Central Texas. Each of the 80,000 flags, symbols of change and transformation, will become the vision and tool for 80,000 new trees in the Waller Creek watershed.
NIGHT GARDEN
Location | Austin, Texas, USA
Landscape architect | dwg.
Image Credits: Leonid Furmansky.
