Nils-Udo's signature piece is "The Nest." Over the years, it's evolved with different materials and designs, and has been installed in several locations around the world, including Lüneburg Heath, Germany (1978) and at the South Carolina Botanical Garden, United States (2005). The Clemson Clay Nest was constructed with 80 tons of pine logs harvested from the local Oconee County pine plantation and hundreds of bamboo sticks. Directed by Nils-Udo, a troop of students and volunteers layered the materials in a circular formation embedded in the garden's red clay earth.
"The idea of planting my work literally into nature—of making it a part of nature, of submitting it to nature - its cycles and rhythms, filled me on the one hand with a deep inner peace and on the other with seemingly inexhaustible new possibilities and fields of action." (—Nils-Udo, Art Nature Dialogues: Interviews With Environmental Artists)