View the Sky Trapezium Project

“Sky Trapezium” is a roof garden on the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver, one of a few permanent art pieces in a noncollecting museum. This is important to note because although this project was designed as a typical green roof, it was an artistic commission. From inception my goal was to push the boundaries in every design sense. 

Quite quickly I realized with no green roof experience that I needed an excellent team of experts to collaborate on the project. They were as follows:

Karla Dakin, Husein Krvavac, K. Dakin Design Inc.
Cydney Payton & John Grant, Museum of Contemporary Art / Denver
Tom Moe, Chuck Keyes, Katie Schmidt, Martin/Martin Engineers
Mike Mancarella, Junoworks
Greg Alvarado, Green By Nature
Mark Fusco, Denver Botanic Gardens
Steve Haave, Davis Partnership Architects
Gianfranco Pacello, Black Roofing
Steve Davies, Complete Custom Construction
Karen Leher, La Porte Avenue Nursery
Mikl Brawner, Harlequin Nursery
Sunscapes Nursery
Rick Wagner, Rainbird 
Ed Steele, M-E Engineers
Mike Crespin, Crespin Electric
Blue White Pools 
Bison Deck Supports
Winslow Crane

Everybody played an integral role in the success of the project. Because of the site and the circumstances, a “bath tub” measuring 13’ x 44’ on a roof with no place to store or stockpile materials, the project had to take shape off site. At Ironton Studios, the beds were fabricated and waterproofed; soil was mixed and loaded, and plants and irrigation were installed. Prototypes were constructed and monitored in Mark Fusco’s back yard. Plants were purchased early in the process and kept in my back yard. Greg Alvarado of the landscape company Green by Nature offered his yard and assistance to Steve Davies the carpenter in building the deck. All the parts were made ready for a snap and click installation via crane a few days before the museum opened.

As artist/landscape architect I worked through the design with the museum director, Cydney Payton and the deputy director, John Grant. The engineers from Martin and Martin offered guidance from early on. Mike Mancarella, the steel fabricator turned drawings into reality with insights at every turn.

Because of the small site, I decided to focus on the oasis aspect of a green roof along with native plants useage, rather than practical aspects like storm water retention or heat island mitigation. Inspired by the pools at Marble Mines and the sod roofs in turn of the century prairie narratives by Willa Cather and Laura Ingalls Wilder, I imagined a place for people to experience belly views of mountain flora and sit in the shade under prairies.

The museum architect, David Adjaye’s triangular skylights inspired the initial form which morphed into trapezoidal pieces floating like clouds down to the deck. I envisioned the steel beds to be a part of the sky or where earth meets sky several stories above ground level. The realization of floating beds of steel, growing media and plants up to 10,000 lbs. can be a challenging exercise for anyone who is not an aeronautics expert. There were those seemingly simple considerations like long cantilevers, snow loads and high winds, irrigation going up, and water draining down. Fortunately for a narrow time frame (approximately five months from start to finish) and a great team, I had little time to second guess myself.

The focus on the plants was just as important as the structural pieces. The plant palette had to reflect the Colorado of my imagination. Natives and climate appropriate plants figured large. As an artist I wanted to create a Colorado garden not just a green roof with sedums. Mark Fusco of Denver Botanic Gardens and I worked together to come up with a plant list that reflected themes in the garden: a blue prairie and a chartreuse green prairie for the upper beds meant to be viewed only from afar so like the views I loved on my walks in the Boulder foothills. The lower beds are meant to be about micro views, the details of small alpine and high altitude prairie plants that we normally forsake for the grandiose mountain views. 

I chose plants with mounding, spreading habits adorned with flowers shaped like balls. I wanted evergreen accents without conifers; I needed bloom throughout the seasons. I wanted unusual species that we overlook in our greater backyard. 

Sky Trapezium is an experimental garden intended to push the boundaries of our expectations of what we find in a landscape. Experience proves that this landscape is a work in progress, meant to change and evolve. We are still working on it.