Nature’s Integral Elements venerate the essential but less visible components of nature: grains of pollen. Three pollen images are etched onto the black granite tops of three hemispherical benches in Bellevue Washington’s Lattawood Park while the same images help light the paths of the adjacent walkways. Additional soft lighting creates a pattern that encircles the benches transforming them into lanterns throughout the evening.
Within Charlotte, North Carolina’s downtown core, each of the ten transit shelters display a picture postcard image from the Charlotte Library’s archives. The images have been enlarged to fit the back wall of each shelter, making it appear as if one could simply walk into the image and find themselves on the streets of Charlotte in one of the city’s earlier periods. However, an overlying gold leaf grid pattern, which adds both an historical note that references Charlotte’s gold mining industry as well as its current status as a banking center, metaphorically prevents a viewer from passing through the glass and physically traveling back in time.
The benches that make up this work of art exist in a synergetic relationship. Etched into one bench is a pattern of flowing water. This bench hosts a two foot hemisphere at its center. Etched into the other bench is a design based on the lotus, a plant that grows in standing water. At its center is a two foot bowl. The benches sit adjacent to one another linked both physically and conceptually, and represent the symbiotic relationships between a patient and caretaker at the Texas Tech Medical Center.
Our Broward Boulevard Streetscape has a distinct Everglades’ theme with its unique benches representing the infamous everglade’s alligator.
Our design for a pedestrian bridge to the African region of the North Carolina Zoo establishes a water theme and includes: a thatched gazebo with a story telling soundtrack, a railing of brightly painted metal interspersed with ceramic jugs, and a dry dock/gateway at the bridges entrances.
Ode to the Worker draws its inspiration from Tampa, Florida’s unique labor history. We recreated and cast in bronze six cigar worker’s chair and commissioned Tampa area poets to write verse addressing the worker’s life. The English, Spanish, or Italian poetry is mounted to the back of each chair. On the Channel side, the Stevedore Bench honors the Banana Dock workers who loaded fruit onto and off of Tampa’s docked ships.
Alum Rocks was designed to complement the existing architecture of the Alum Rock Library. This included terrazzo medallions sited beneath the building’s skylights, venetian plaster used to add color to the skylights, and thin gold and sliver leafed metal images, echoing the motifs of the terrazzo medallions below, strategically placed on top of the venetian plaster.
This plaza in front of the City of Atlanta Detection Center hosts a sculptural environment based on the notion of time. Four etched granite carpets are design with symbols of marking time. These include hour glasses, a flowing stream, tree rings, and pendulums. In addition, at the corners of each carpet are plant images that signify the four seasons, while the fringes of the carpets are the scratches we use for counting off days.
Year of the Snake and Year of the Monkey exist in within the International District Plaza in a primarily Asian community. On the plaza there are brick patterns laid out in a manner that references the 12 years of the Chinese calendar.
Photographs by Dick Busher