SELECTED PORTFOLIO

2019: Cloud Basins: Changi International Airport, Singapore
Commissioning Architect: Safdie Architects with PWP Landscape Architecture

Permanently installed on the fifth floor of Forest Valley, these four, concave bowls are each large enough to hold twenty people. Heavy fog periodically fills the bowls, allowing visitors to play among the clouds.

2007 Wave Wall:  Laser Interferometer Gravitational Observatory (L.I.G.O) Learning Center
Commissioning Architect: Eskew + Dumez + Ripple
Wave Wall is a monumental kinetic facade activated by the wind. Each 35-foot pendulum is magnetically coupled with its neighbor so that even low winds create ripping and wave-like patterns.
AWARDS: 2007 Architects Institute of America (AIA) design award (New Orleans Chapter)

2001 Icy Bodies

“Kant writes of objects that can create fearfulness and awe in their spectators without any sense that we are personally at risk. For all the modesty of its scale, there is something of that in Icy Bodies. You can lean on the case that contains it – but you look through the glass into a universe.”

— Thomas Sutcliffe, The Independent, UK

Created in 2001, Icy Bodies has been installed in over a dozen national and international museums.  "The pale, ghostly swirls on the dark water," described the London Telegraph newspaper, "have a beauty that belongs as much in an art gallery as it does here, in a science museum." Reminiscent of comets, the ice shards sublimate small amounts of carbon dioxide that propel the spinning shards in unexpected directions. The resulting patterns are mesmerizing and unique to each cycle.

2013 Bay Windows: San Francisco, CA
Shallow rotating tanks filled with local mud and sediment reveal the Bay’s invisible dynamics. Rotating the tanks creates a swirling mix of water, fine mud, and (as with sediment from the Sacramento Delta) small clam shells. These muddy indicators tell the story of San Francisco Bay’s fast and slow flowing currents.

2001 Water Towers: 1950 Mission Street, San Francisco, CA
Commissioning Architect: David Baker Architects
Landscape Architect: GLS Landscape/Architecture
Two Water Towers were sited on the rooftop common space of a residential building. Recycling water systems create a silvery thin vortex that extends the length of the central glass tube as prismatic colors change throughout the day.

2019 Middle Ground: Civic Center, San Francisco
Principal Investigator: Shawn Lani NSF Grant 1713638
Middle Ground is an exploration into human social interactions in the middle of San Francisco’s vibrant Civic Center.

Whether you’re a denizen of the densest urban metropolis or the smallest small town, no person is an island. What goes into the stories we tell ourselves about other people—whether they’re on the streets we share, in our memories and our newsfeeds, or on the other side of the world? Social scientists have studied how we think, feel, and behave in relation to other people for decades. Their investigations have shed light on bias and stereotyping, humor and generosity, how we work together, and how we pull apart into tribes.

2016 Chimeway: Joaquin Plaza, San Leandro
Partner Architect: Joshua Bacigalupi
Two sets of chimes now arch over a pathway through the plaza, creating a social and visual center. Benches invite people to sit and watch, or listen. Other seats let users contribute to the soundscape: by rocking, they ring the overhead chimes.

2013 Lathe House Light Play: San Francisco, CA
A Lathe House placed on a rotating platform created a slowly emergent light show of color and shadow. Artists, educators, and children visiting the Exploratorium use the Lathe House as a place to experiment, contemplate, and play with light and color.