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.