Pine Sanctuary by MARC FORNES / THEVERYMANY is a placemaker for Riverwood Conservancy in Mississauga, Ontario. An inviting enclosure at a scale between sculpture and architecture, it signals the entrance to the park and provides a unique canopy for occupations of all kinds.

In a clearing along Riverwood Park Lane, a system of branches rotates around a center point. There's no trunk holding up this arboreal structure. Instead, it opens up into a shady interior.  The overall geometry is comprised of an aggregation of "Macro Shingles" which form pockets of space, blurring the lines between inside out, while increasing shadowy coverage. These Macro Shingles resolve into branches that touch the ground lightly around a covered grove, like a redwood hollowed out.

The project is an example of the studio’s innovative "Structural Stripes"—a building system in which a continuous surface is de/composed into custom designed and digitally fabricated parts, cut from ultra-thin aluminum. Held in place as a “Bending-Active” structure, they laminate in multiple directions to create the curvilinear form of each component piece. 3,161 unique stripes are painted with fours shades of green, a blue, black and white to produce a dynamic coloration across the whole system.  The delaminated, double-layered skin provides a moiré of colors, as well as shadows and speckled light to catch on the ground. A mystical space under dynamic shade and between leafy surfaces, Pine Sanctuary remains a place for spontaneous play as much as for quiet sanctuary among trees.

Pine Sanctuary was commissioned by the City of Mississauga, Public Art Collection. It is the studio’s second public art project in Canada after Vaulted Willow, a permanent folly in Borden Park in Edmonton, commissioned by the Edmonton Arts Council.