Missouri Botanical Garden Cafe

3form partnered with Tao + Lee to bring Missouri Botanical Garden's landscape indoors, encapsulating real pressed botanicals in Varia resin and digitally printed 3form Glass throughout Sassafras Cafe.

Background

Challenge

Solution

Firm

Digital Print Designer

Services & Materials

CO Numbers

Initial Concept Renderings

Testing

Many botanicals laid nicely and could handle the bonding process of the glass solution. However, some botanicals were too fragile and delicate for the laminated glass solution.

Varia could handle the botanicals' fragility while maintaining their shape and integrity. The botanicals in Varia appear as if they are frozen in time, highlighting their depth and detail, while providing the translucency and durability needed for the project. Various questions then needed to be addressed, such as what botanicals were to be used and in what pattern. How can our 3form production team stay consistent with the established patterns? How will the materials be sourced?

Tao + Lee partnered with the Missouri Botanical Garden, experts in drying botanicals. With guidance from 3form, they took on this process to achieve the ideal moisture percentage best suited for the Varia pressing process.

Once the panels were in production, the focus turned to identifying where the Varia and glass panels would go throughout the various areas of the space.

The areas of focus were the dining portals, the POS station, and the highchair station. For the dining portals, specifiers chose four Varia panels with pressed botanical interlayers and one Varia custom digital print with recessed Top Support. They used a patent finish on one side of the panel and a sandstone on the other. The patent finish allows for more translucency, while sandstone obscures visibility slightly resulting in full visibility of the plants on one side while the other provided an additional level of privacy.

Tao + Lee loved the optical clarity glass provided for the POS station, so they decided to use digitally printed glass panels with recessed Top Support. The recessed Top Support reduced the visible hardware to those using the space, and digitally printing the graphics enabled 3form to create elaborate panel patterns, which wouldn't be achievable if 3form pressed actual seeds in Varia due to their predisposition to shift during the process.

The highchair/disposal station was made with one digitally printed Varia panel with an Avalanche diffusion on the back. Avalanche is an opaque white that is often used for direct glue application so that the glue doesn't show through the material. Using a digital print with Varia was ideal for these two sections due to its high durability and cleanability. Since it is in a heavily trafficked area, the panels are subjected to some interaction.

Production

MBG recruited Arbolope Studio to create digital templates for 3form to utilize for the botanical specimen layups. They were also used as the template for the glass digital prints and several Varia panels. Arbolope Studio diligently played with size and orientation to create the pattern that best displayed the organics within the 3form panels.

Arbolope's digital layup

3form's finished product

The last step was to secure the placement of each panel within the cafe to give the visitors a sense of being surrounded by walls of various botanicals, enriching their dining experience.

200.25 Recessed Top Support with no bottom track featuring Varia 1/2" CMP panels with Patent/Sandstone finish - Information film supplied by other

Digital Print on Glass and Varia

200.25 Recessed Top Support with 9/16" digital print laminated glass panels

Directly glued Varia 1/4" digitally printed botanicals on Avalanche with Patent/Sandstone finish

200.25 Recessed Top Support with 9/16" digital print on Varia

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