The first “living” double-decker Airbus 380 is abloom at the Dubai Miracle Garden.
The floral installation in the shape of the world’s largest commercial passenger aircraft – the A380 – was done using more than 500,000 flowering plants. In full bloom, millions of flowers in various hues will crop up.
“Aviation affects all of our lives, and the A380 on showcase will offer visitors the opportunity to get up close to the double-decker,” according to Boutros Boutros, Emirates Airlines Divisional Senior Vice President of Corporate Communications.
The flowers and plants used for A380 installation were seven varieties of flowers: Petunia, Coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides), Marigold (Tagetes), Snapdragon (Antirrhinum), Viola, Geranium (Pelargonium) and Gaillardia (Gaillardia aristata).
A variety of over 9,000 flowers and plants made up the Emirates logo, and 100,000 blossoms formed the wings.
The A380 installation at the Dubai Miracle garden took 6 months to create and more than 200 installation crew members worked 10 hours a day.
The life-size installation is over 72.93 meters long. The aircraft structure includes moving engine fans and other key features that capture the original aircraft design.
The ‘living A380’ is the largest structure at the garden and is set on a flowerbed of 7,460 square meters, around 10 percent of the Dubai Miracle Garden. The Emirates A380 installation will be on display for the public starting November 27, 2016.
“Having an Emirates A380 is a great achievement for Dubai Miracle Garden and we are proud to have the floral installation of the aircraft as the world’s largest floral sculpture ever built,” said Abdel Naser Rahhal, co-founder and creator of Dubai Miracle Garden. “As our motto says: We are the green masters and bloom makers, wherever we go we make it green, whatever we touch we make it bloom.”