A new installation by designers Hermine Demaël and Stephen Zimmerer is now open at the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG) Enid A. Haupt Conservatory.
Demaël and Zimmerer, two Syracuse University architecture professors, worked in collaboration with NYBG assistant curator Dr. Evelyn Beaury on Greenhouse Prototype 2, located under the Haupt Conservatory’s famous glass dome.
The installation is a lightweight mobile device with a large “research drawing” draped from an aluminum frame made from an existing greenhouse structure. Designers call it a “climate device” that produces its own micro-environment for supporting plants and other life forms with shade, passive airflow, and misting pumps.
The illustrations on the device were inspired by NYBG scientist Dr. Douglas Daly, a curator of Amazonian botany at NYBG, and made with in-house scientists at NYBG. Dr. Daly is coauthor of Manual of Leaf Architecture, published by Cornell University Press in 2009.
“We find that beginning with reused materials is not only environmentally responsible, but provides a productive design challenge,” they said in a joint statement.
Perforated aluminum screens on the structure mirror back to viewers Glass House 3’s glass roof.
“Placing our architectural system at the visitors’ eye level will help emphasize more largely the architectural marvel that is the Haupt Conservatory and highlight all the intricate materials, details and systems which are maintained daily by the staff,” Demaël said.
The goal behind the structure was to echo the early botanical conservatories “inspired by the structural properties of plants” while acknowledging “the shifting scales and narratives of scientific practice today.”
Greenhouse Prototype 2 is on view through October 5, 2026. It is the culmination of a year-long research project, titled Evolving with Plants, supported by The Architectural League of New York and New York State Council on the Arts.
Additionally, Weiss/Manfredi is currently redesigning NYBG’s museum complex and Mosholu entrance and welcome center; it will also design a new education center.