The focus of this campus is an eight-acre green space that serves as the outdoor living room for TIAA-CREF’s headquarters in Charlotte, NC. The landscape concept abstracts the geographic regions of North Carolina, providing interest and a true sense of place. The Glass Forest is based on Huether’s interest in the projection and transmission of light and patterns. The landscape plan provided inspiration for the creation of a small stand of abstracted trees that would create patterned light when viewed through the glass, magnifying and distorting the leaves and branches above.

All components for the installation had to be engineered for weight distribution and wind loads up to 65 miles per hour. Each connecting point had to be thoroughly tested, movement and flexibility accounted for and the type of footing established. Through all this, the sculpture made of steel, Pyrex tubes and glass, had to remain as true as possible to Huether’s original concept of a forest of striking trees that would provide a place of quiet contemplation on the campus grounds.