RADIANT FOUNTAINS

A set of three sculptures by artist Dennis Oppenheim, was commissioned by the Houston Arts Alliance for the Houston Airport System.  The work serves as an icon visible to motorists upon leaving Bush Intercontinental Airport and entering the City of Houston.  Each 60’ tower is wrapped in animated LEDs that begin as droplets plunging downward and then radiate out in a seemingly endless upward flow of light and spectacle.  Metalab performed fabrication consultation and construction management orchestrating installation of the sculptures that tower over the main approach to the airport.

SHOWERSHADE

Designed by New York based installation artist Chris Doyle, is a Percent for Art project located at the City of Austin’s new Public Safety Training Facility.  This permanent installation was designed as a modest, open-air shelter and includes a roof mural that was made through CNC cut perforations to the corrugated stainless steel canopy.   The pavilion and canopy were fabricated and pre-assembled in Houston and shipped to Austin as a kit-of-parts that require minimal site work.

TOLERANCE

Jaume Plensa’s TOLERANCE is a set of seven stainless steel human figures, each kneeling atop a boulder placed along the banks of Buffalo Bayou just outside of downtown Houston.  All of the figures are taken from the same model, but each is composed of a distinct set of characters taken from a mix of languages including Hebrew, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Latin, Hindi and Cyrillic.  At night, the figures glow from within, creating a “constellation of beacons.”

Metalab, working on behalf of the Houston Arts Alliance, provided construction management and installation services, and fabrication of a custom foundation system that allowed for rapid placement of the sculptures on site.

WOOZY BLOSSOM

Woozy Blossom (Platanus nebulosus) by Matthew Geller, Artist commissioned for Katonah Museum of Art.  This sixteen-foot-high perforated steel tree produces a continuous fog, inviting visitors to be engulfed in its mist and revel in its cool, moist air. The fog is in a constant state of flux, sensitive to the slightest changes in wind, temperature, and humidity. Simultaneously eerie, unexpected, and playful, Woozy Blossom transforms the Katonah Museum of Art Sculpture Garden into an ever-changing, otherworldly environment.  Metalab contributed digital parametric design and fabrication.  The project was built as a kit of parts that can be disassembled, packaged and shipped to its location.  Installation took one day.

CLOUD CODE

“Cloud Code” in the City of Houston Permitting Center is a conduit and real-time display of the occupancy, activity, and air quality in the building. The interaction of occupants within the physical space of the public areas is measured and displayed as civic art.

A rear-projection display of animated graphics is generated by a network of meshed micro-sensors housed in custom fabricated enclosures. The occupants feed data to processing software that Metalab coded for the project. The activity creates a cloud-like indication of indoor air quality in the first floor public area of the building. In addition to air quality and occupancy, other qualitative aspects of the building such as movement and ambient sound are graphically represented in an abstracted floor plan.

OPEN CHANNEL FLOW

Open Channel Flow is a sculpture by New York based artist Matthew Geller, that was commissioned by the Houston Arts Alliance as a permanent piece for the City of Houston Art Collection. Turnkey architecture, custom component fabrication, and construction management helped to realize this commission as a kit-of-parts that was assembled on site efficiently with the quality and finish of a manufactured product. Located next to Buffalo Bayou, the structure emerges from the landscape of a Houston Water Production Station to a height of 60’. Inspired by the strange protrusions of plumbing infrastructure, the colossal pipe works features a public outdoor shower activated by a hand pump. A nearby skate park ensures that a steady flow of skaters and passersby will indulge in a refreshing spritz on Houston’s infamously humid afternoons.

TWIN GROVES WIND FARM LOOKOUT

The project is a public landscape installed at Horizon Wind Energy’s Twin Groves Wind Farm in central Illinois. The concept of inscribing the outline of a 70 meter wind tower at full scale in the ground was conceived by ttweak renewables, a strategic communications and design company. Metalab digitally models and fabricates the components as a kit-of-parts made in Houston and transported to remote sites via a modified shipping container and assembled with minimal site work and labor. The Lookout is being repeated at Horizon’s other wind farms in Minnesota, Texas and New York.

With accuracy and efficiency the wind tower’s scale and form is realized as a concrete surface with stainless steel edging that will last as long as the life span of the wind farm. The Lookout serves as an information center and viewing platform for Horizon to explain wind energy to the public. Its construction process is uniquely parallel to the manufacturing and assembly of the wind tower that it represents.