Modern Landscape Designer Breaks New Ground

The Urban Garden Room brings nature inside—in this case to the lobby of the Bank of America Tower in midtown Manhattan. Inspired by the lush fern canyons in Humboldt County, California, Ruddick collaborated with her mother, the artist Dorothy Ruddick, to create imposing, monolithic sculptures that then were covered with ferns, mosses, and vines. "When you go there, people are very quiet," Ruddick says of the space, which was completed shortly before her mother died in 2010. "If they’re talking, all of a sudden they stop. It smells like ferns and earth, and it’s a little humid. It’s a very quiet place, and it feels very healthful."