The interior landscapes of the Rockefeller Center lobbies are an extension of the Rewilding project that Watson Salembier have been conducting throughout the Rockefeller Center Campus. The lobby’s landscape was designed to amplify Rockefeller Center’s identity, by siting botanical pockets in amongst the grandeur of the iconic spaces. The styles of the lobbies influence the aesthetic and structural approach to the planting palettes with three style groupings emerging based upon the lobby features such as wall and floor color, ceiling height, and daylighting levels.

The lobby landscapes explore the color, texture, three dimensionality, seasonality and sustainability of our microcosms of miniature ecosystems. The botanical pockets, which are inspired by a rich tapestry of indigenous woodland species, are intended to amplify the multi-sensory experience of the lobby spaces by adding a depth of sensory enrichment. They will create a unique rewilded threshold experience for the campus inspired by the Eastern deciduous forest, which is the landscape that stretches from Canada to Georgia. This is the world’s richest temperate woodland ecosystem containing a diverse mix of plants that thrive in the shade of large canopy trees. In the native forest, vertical and horizontal layering composes the structure of the forest. The lobbies are designed to introduce a similar structure to take advantage of the existing conditions and appear as natural or rewilded as possible.

The lobbies offer challenging environmental conditions for plant growth such as low light and low air flow. Similar conditions found in nature occur under a canopy environment in a forested area, called the ‘Forest’s Understory.’ By mimicking the Forest’s Understory, plants suitable to these environmental conditions that usually live beside one another in their natural environments can be planted.

The lobby landscapes will experience two seasonal changes throughout the year, with the design of both spring and fall palettes. In three different planting groups, spring palette colors include light shades of greens and splashes of light purple and yellow, while fall palette colors are darker greens that contrast with bronze, light maroons and peachy pinks.