Xylem

12. July 2019

Francis Kéré-designed Xylem at Tippet Rise Art Center in Montana, 2019. Image courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan. (Photo: Iwan Baan)

Xylem is located close to the art center’s central campus near the bank of Grove Creek, amid aspen and cottonwood trees. (Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan)

Named to evoke the vital internal layers of a tree’s living structure, Xylem is a place where visitors may gather to converse, contemplate the views of the aspen and cottonwood trees near the bank of Grove Creek, or sit and meditate in solitude. (Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan)

Xylem was constructed of locally and sustainably-sourced ponderosa and lodgepole pine. (Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan)

Kéré drew inspiration for his design from the traditional togunas of the Dogon culture of Mali: sacred shelters with wooden pillars and layered roofs of wood and millet straw, which provide protection from the sun as well as ventilation within the space beneath. (Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan)

Xylem features a canopy of vertical logs above the seating areas, to create both shelter and a play of light and shadow. (Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan)

The seating elements’ organic shapes are inspired in part by abstract paintings that artist and Tippet Rise co-founder Cathy Halstead created based on forms of microscopic life, in addition to the sinuous topography of the surrounding hills. (Photo: Iwan Baan, courtesy of Tippet Rise/Iwan Baan)