by Brianna Crandall — October 8, 2014—For facilities owners and managers interested in incorporating an artistic yet environmental and practical statement to their corporate, educational or health care campus, designer and business owner Dave MacKenzie has demonstrated a unique possibility. Last year, MacKenzie debuted his unique brand of living art using a 1,400-square-foot living wall system containing 2,500 plants at ArtPrize, considered the world’s largest publicly voted art contest. This year, the artist is back with a larger and more intricate design.
Entitled “Breathe,” the living mural is home to more than 3,500 plants and reaches over 20 feet tall at its peak and stretches 150 feet long. “Breathe” separates itself from MacKenzie’s earlier work by breaking the traditional mold of a rectangular canvas. The new design is curvilinear, graphic, and interactive.
“The largest graphic includes a windblown pattern of color in which white flowers spell Breathe O2 (oxygen) and symbolize the air. The green patterns, above and below, represent the forests and fields. And the yellow in the upper right hand corner symbolizes the sun, which fuels photosynthesis, which yields oxygen (O2),” says designer Dave MacKenzie.”This vital process happens within the leaves, and therefore ‘Breathe’ also features leaf-shaped graphics of Michigan native trees, including catalpa, oak, beech and maple.”
Using the LiveWall system as the canvas, the entry surrounds and buffers the noise and odors of the waste dumpsters and air-conditioning equipment of the Grand Rapids entertainment venue The Big Old Building (or “B.O.B.”), part of the Gilmore Collection. “Breathe” was inspired by the idea of restoring the built environment to a more natural state. The living architecture movement is a growing trend in design that aims to restore balance to urban settings by reintroducing vegetation lost during urbanization, explains LiveWall.
MacKenzie stretched beyond the use of plants and incorporated lighting elements into the design of his piece as well. These lights trace the outline of the leaf shapes and the veins that run through the leaves. MacKenzie explained that these features symbolize the important role that light plays in the photosynthetic process, which creates the air we breathe.
MacKenzie, founder and president of Hortech, Inc., and its subsidiaries LiveRoof and LiveWall, hopes that his piece will inspire others to become passionate about living architecture and green walls. “It’s essentially an environmental statement showcasing the importance of plants in our world,” MacKenzie said.
“Breathe” can be viewed outside of the B.O.B. during ArtPrize, which runs September 24 to October 11, 2014, in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
