Hammock Veil Gardens

The Hammock Veil celebrates the wet/dry seasons of South Florida's tropical hardwood hammock and strand swamp ecotypes. This ecologically inspired design creates an urban oasis in downtown Miami at the New World Campus. Within the small pocket park located off NE 2nd Street, Hammock Veil transitions from the street through an allee of Gumbo Limbo (Bursera simaruba) and bosque of Thatch Palm (Thrinax radiata) into a Live Oak (Quercus virginiana) mound reminiscent of a Oolitic Limestone outcrop and depression of Pond Cypress (Taxodium ascendens) and Pond Apple (Annona glabra). In essence the project creates a transect of cultivated and maintained vegetation along the street into a re-wilded landscape as you transition deeper into the site. Within the hardwood hammock and strand swamp ecotypes totems of epiphytes constructed from Oolite that mimic natural solution holes, tree canopy and rock outcrops can be found. Pathways meander through the garden offering an experience through the various landscapes. A continuous seating wall is offered along the western edge of the garden. The site is designed to dampen sound and create a refuge from the city. The topographic changes provide for various opportunities for plants to take hold and propagate on constructed cribbing and natural vegetation under the closed canopy. A fernery garden that is reminiscent of natural solution holes can be found in the center of the garden and forms an enclosed room for contemplation and isolation. A bridge across the strand swamp depression provides visitors with an experience through the wetland, as well as opportunities for seating. Landscape is not ornament, but rather becomes a restorative ecology that treats stormwater from the rooftops and street.