The first sculpture you will see is across from the check-in desk in The Atrium. You look straight ahead at the beautiful blossom of the Sundew and then down below are over 500 tentacles, illuminated with fiber optics. It does a great job of creating how you would come across the plant in its natural habitat. One of the commissioned works was done by artists Jenn Figg and Matthew McCormack. They created an installation piece of the creeping plant, the witches’ weed Datura. Datura lures you in close with beautiful flowers and then releases toxic hallucinogens. Not that this one will, it is all steel and glass so you will have to go elsewhere for your love potion ingredients. They both really enjoyed creating the piece and did all of the glass work at Glass Axis. Creating and installing the piece took about three weeks of working through the night because of the current hot temperatures. The Moonflower is one of their favorite plants so when the call for artists went out it was naturally the one they selected.
The piece will become part of the Conservatory’s collection and is located in Himalayan Room. The sculptures sprinkled throughout the Conservatory alongside the plants do a wonderful job of highlighting “where artistic endeavor and the natural world meet,” said Executive Director Bruce Harkey. Bruce demonstrates the larger-than-life size of TORK’s 10 foot tall Tropical Pitcher Plant. The sculpture, located in The Rainforest area, invites you to “step inside to imagine the fate of an unlucky insect.” In The Bonsai Garden, you will see TORK’s huge Venus flytrap sculpture that mimics the real thing when you push a button. You have to push the button twice to get the plant to close. You can see a video of them working on the sculpture here. In the same area are real Venus flytraps, including the largest variety, the B-52. Venus flytraps really only need to feed a few times per year to survive. Each day at 1pm, a Conservatory Horticulturist will demonstrate a carnivorous plant feeding.
Horticulturist Amanda Bettin demonstrates one on a B-52 below: With sculptures, a juried art show, hand painted banners, a puppet display and a digital display of cartoons, Savage Gardens is sure to please everyone. You can visit the Franklin Park Conservatory daily from 10am-5pm and on Wednesday from 10am-8pm.We have once again found ourselves finishing up another spectacular year at Office Snapshots and have compiled the definitive list of the Top 25 Most Popular Offices of 2016. Past years: 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012 This year is extra special as well because this upcoming July marks Office Snapshots’ 10-year anniversary. In that time we’ve published nearly 3000 offices from some 700 architecture and design firms from all corners of the globe. Having started the site mainly for a little bit of fun, I never would have imagined that it would become the most popular office design website in the world. Up until about a month ago the site was also still a solo operation and I’m really excited that that is no longer the case.
We’re looking forward serving you again in 2017 — and for those that haven’t, here’s how you can read and subscribe: Thank you for making 2016 such a fantastic year! Now onto the winners… #1: Centro (view project) Design: Partners by Design Photography: Tom Harris – Hedrich Blessing Photographers Location: Chicago, Illinois, USA #2: Wave Coworking (view project) Location: Hong Kong, China #3: Instacart (view project) Location: San Francisco, California, USA #4: Liander (view project) Design: Fokkema & Partners Photography: Horizon Photoworks Rotterdam, Marcel van der Burg (Primabeeld) #5: Gensler (view project) Location: Oakland, California, USA #6: F88-Gplay Group (view project) #7: Paysafe (view project) #8: Dropbox (view project) Location: Austin, Texas, USA #9: Red Bull (view project) Photography: Jason Strong Photography #10: Harmonic (view project) #11: Google (view project)
Photography: Halkin Mason Photography Location: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA #12: VICE Media (view project) #13: Opera (view project) Photography: Marcin Ratajczak, Maciej Dąbrowski #14: Warner Music (view project) Photography: Courtesy Bean Buro Location: Hong Kong, China #15: NBBJ (view project) Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA #16: Unispace (view project) Location: Seattle, Washington, USA #17: Sonos (view project) Design: IA Interior Architects Photography: Robert Benson Photography Location: Boston, Massachusetts, USA #18: Paperwork (view project) #19: RD Construction (view project) #20: Dream (view project) #21: King Games (view project) #22: Avast Software (view project) Design: VRTIŠKA • ŽÁK Location: Prague, Czech Republic #23: Fullscreen (view project) Location: Los Angeles, California, USA #24: Slate (view project) Location: New York City, New York, USA