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At Saks, A Mystical Metal Forest

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A shimmering structure builds intrigue by hinting at the beauty beyond

If the Garden of Eden had a fence, it might look something like the room divider at Saks Fifth Avenue’s downtown location. Unitfive Design – whose gold-plated, wireframe stag-head sculpture and chandeliers are on offer at Avenue Road – hand-forged the rose brass-plated screens to serve as a semi-transparent enclosure for the store’s designer womenswear department. Composed of 49 super-slim, tree-like components that stretch from floor to ceiling, the structure is over 27 metres wide.

176 Yonge St  416 507 3100  Mon-Fri 10-9:30, Sat 9:30-9:30, Sun 10-7

saksfifthavenue.com


Part of our feature on four retail environments with dazzling art installations. Originally published in Issue 4 2016 as All that Glitters: Mystical Forest.

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The Bentway’s playful installation of 50 trees in shopping carts shines a light on climate resilience and green equity

In a city grappling with rising temperatures, accelerated development and increasing inequity in green space accessibility, Moving Forest arrives not as a solution, but as an invitation to rethink our relationship with nature. Designed by NL Architects as a part of The Bentway’s Sun/Shade exhibition, this outlandish yet purposeful installation transforms a fleet of 50 shopping carts into mobile vessels for native trees—red maples, silver maples, sugar maples and autumn blaze—that roll through some of Toronto’s most sun-scorched plazas, creating impromptu oases of shade and community.

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