And The Winner Is….

Michael Overby and Emma Fuller Win The San Francisco Botanical Garden's Gondwana Circle Design Competition

Beating out more than 90 designs submitted from around the world, the design team of Michael Overby and Emma Fuller from New York City won the San Francisco Botanical Garden's Gondwana Circle Design Competition and the $10,000 prize. Running for five months, the competition was an open call to artists and designers interested in gardens and public art  to create a design exploring the  historical significance of Gondwana as it relates to today's horticultural communities of the Southern Hemisphere.

Where's Gondwana?

The Gondwana continent, formed approximately 200 million years ago, contained most of the landmasses found in today's Southern Hemisphere, as well as Arabia and the Indian Subcontinent.  Tectonic movement, something San Franciscans are too familiar with, has eventually led to the continents we know now.

"The geological story of Gondwana plays out significantly at the San Francisco Botanical Garden. We're one of a handful of public gardens worldwide to have such a significant collection of Southern Hemisphere plants with our extraordinary Chilean, New Zealand, Australian, and South African gardens.  These plants tell the story of plant evolution and migration," According to Michael McKechnie, executive director of the San Francisco Botanical Garden Society, "The relationship of the plants from South Africa, New Zealand and Chile is sometimes very close.  It's fascinating to see."

Located at the heart of Golden Gate Park, 100 yards from the Academy of Sciences, the SF Botanical Garden has taken advantage of San Francisco's unusual climate to build this stunning collection of plants collected from around the world that thrive in the Bay Area.

And hence, the celebration of Gondwana and the diversity of plants that will flourish here. The winning design will stand at the intersection where these Southern Hemisphere gardens meet.

Roving Mass

In a blind competition where the names and locations of the designers were omitted, jurors applauded Roving Mass as "dramatic and evocative," "seemed very appropriate to the garden" and that it would be "fun to move through."

It features towering rammed earth pillars representing Gondwana's evolution from supercontinent to today's Southern Hemisphere.  

Standing inside the circle formed by the pillars, a visitor can visually reconnect the tectonic movement of the Gondwana mass.  Each of the pillars is covered in plants that show the horticultural evolution connected with each region.

To see Roving Mass and all 90 submissions go to: http://www.sfbotanicalgarden.org/events/gondwana-circle-competition-entries.html

The Jury's Verdict

To rise above the ordinary, an eclectic jury was assembled by the SFBG Society including California Academy of Sciences geologist, Jean De Mouthe,  landscape artist Topher Delaney, and Dr Peter Raven, hailed by TIME magazine as a "Hero for the Planet", and native San Franciscan.

According to Raven, "The competition has brought forth a great burst of creativity for art in a public space which often gets dragged down to the lowest common denominator. The designs spanned the wildest imagination celebrating the diversity of plants that can flourish in San Francisco from around the Southern Hemisphere,"

The Jury Included:

 Jennifer Bowles Trustee, SF Botanical Garden Society Topher Delaney Environmental Artist, Landscape Designer Jean DeMouthe Geologist, Calif. Academy of Sciences Mary Margaret Jones Landscape Architect, President, Hargreaves Associates Paul Licht Director, UC Berkeley Botanical Garden Patricia J. D. Raven Horticulturalist, Journalist, Photographer Peter Raven President, Missouri Botanical Garden Sandra Robins Educator, San Francisco Exploratorium Zahid Sardar San Francisco Author, Landscape Design Critic

The San Francisco Botanical Garden

The City's oasis, the SFBG displays more than 7500 varieties of the world's most spectacular plants thriving on 55 acres in the heart of Golden Gate Park.  Open 365 days a year, the SFBG plays a vital role in San Francisco offering a connection to nature, our gardens, our city.