Steward Family Plaza, walkway and vertical garden at The Sheldon

“As the premier venue in St Louis for music and visual art, we are excited to utilize the outside of our building to present a new, unique and architecturally significant piece of art to the neighborhood and community,” says Anne Bannister, Sheldon Arts Foundation board chair. “Its vertical garden’s unique web-like steel structure creates a lyrical pattern which will be overgrown with a rich variety of horticultural textures and colors, ever changing throughout the seasons.”

The centerpiece of the plaza is a three-story, 208-foot long vertical garden along the entire west wall of The Sheldon’s Emerson Center building, designed by Andrew Colopy of Colbalt Office, in collaboration with Ben Gilmartin. The garden’s sculptural wall is constructed from steel panels, laser-cut in an organic filigree pattern, with steel and fabrication generously donated by Kathy and Robert Williams, Jr. of Williams Patent Crusher. The project’s landscape architect, DLANDstudio, Inc., in collaboration with Scott Woodbury, director of Shaw Nature Reserve (part of Missouri Botanical Garden), have designed the garden to flourish year-round, with native Missouri vines chosen specifically to survive St. Louis’ hot summers and harsh winters. The plants will grow up and onto the steel panels, creating an architectural sculpture and urban green space. LED lights are placed in over 200 connecting nodes to create a magical effect at night when the vertical garden is lit.

“The vertical garden is the result of close collaboration between designers and engineers, a one-of-a-kind structure only possible through computer-aided design and fabrication,” says Colopy. “More importantly, it is a beautifully irregular array of steel and vegetation set in contradistinction to the building beyond — a new, greener side of The Sheldon.”

Environmental Impact

The garden was constructed using environmentally friendly design. Space saving and sustainable, the vertical garden and surrounding rain gardens and landscaping add green space to The Sheldon’s urban environment. Bio-retention areas and bio-swales, made possible by a Project Clear grant from the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District, will divert storm water from the city sewer system. Vertical gardens (or green walls) have been shown to filter air pollutants and absorb CO2, improving the air quality of its surroundings. The use of native plants increases these benefits, with the additional outcomes of eliminating the use of pesticides and fertilizers, and providing efficient water usage — the garden in Steward Family Plaza is expected to divert almost half a million gallons of storm water per year. Green walls also help lower the “urban heat island” effect, and act as natural insulators, leading to decreased energy use to heat and cool the attached building. Krista Bentson of DLANDstudio says, “The Sheldon plantings demonstrate that aesthetic desires can coexist with the functional; that a landscape using native plants and providing stormwater capture can also be modern and verdant.” “Even at the scale of a plaza there is potential for larger scale ecological impact,” adds Susannah Drake, founding principal of DLANDstudio. “Our team worked closely with the Missouri Botanical Garden to select plantings attractive to Monarch butterflies and other pollinators to strengthen migration corridors through the central part of the United States.”

Scott Woodbury of Missouri Botanical Garden adds, “The practice of native landscaping is still in its infancy and there is a need to help landscape planners, contractors and educators on how best native plants may be used. There is more to gardens than beauty. When interpreted well, landscapes that incorporate native plants inspire conversations about natural history, ecology and the role people have in supporting biodiversity.”

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