Work By Award-winning UB Architect to Be Featured at International Garden Festival

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- "Buoyant," a garden installation designed by Laura Garofalo, assistant professor of architecture in the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, has been selected by an international jury to be featured at the 13th International Garden Festival of Les Jardin de Métis (also known as Redford Gardens), in Quebec, Canada, June 23 to Sept. 30.

Her design features hydrogen-filled balloons that support a trellis that ebbs and flows with the wind, fluctuations in temperature and the slow leakage of the balloons. Vines emanate from "maintenance bundles" at the base of the suspended trellis and highlight how nature depends on the stewardship of the community that nurtures it.

The International Garden Festival, one of the most important events of its kind in North America, is presented by the Foundation of the Jardins de Métis. It offers a unique forum for innovation and experimentation and serves as a showcase and launching pad for participating designers from a host of disciplines.

A previous Garofalo project, "A Garden of Shared Resources," produced in 2007 for the juried Ephemeral Gardens competition presented by the society for the 400th anniversary of Quebec, was recently featured in the new book "Vegetecture," edited by Maurizio Corrado. UB alumni Ashley Latona and Rafal Godelewski collaborated with her on this project. "Vegetecture," one of the latest tendencies in modern architecture, focuses on the idea of the city-forest.

In addition, Garófalo and her collaborator David Hill, assistant professor of architecture at North Carolina State University, have received a Special Prize for their entry in the 46th Central Glass International Architectural Design Competition. Another of their collaborative projects, the water and air channeling device, "Flow Wall Pavilion," was exhibited this fall at the Erie Canal Harbor Central Wharf in connection with the UB Humanities Institute's year-long "Fluid Culture" series of lecture, arts and media events focused on water resources.

Garofalo's work also will be featured in the Oct. 15-19 "Engendering Gardens" program now in development by the UB Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender.