 After winning first place in a national competition, ACLA ushered the design for this public park, adjacent to the Pittsburgh Children`s Museum, through its opening day in 2012. The design respects and highlights the historic importance of the site at the same time as it breathes fresh life into the plaza. After reconnecting the historic city grid that was destroyed during 1960`s-era &lsquo;urban renewal` efforts, the park is once again the public gathering area it once was for Allegheny City. Important design features such as a bioswale and native planting educate visitors about sustainability, while an interactive art installation activates the space and fosters a connection with the nearby Children`s Museum.  ACLA led the design of the project, working with a team of consultants and engineers to negotiate the unique challenges of realizing this park. Collaboration with a public artist to develop the site-specific installation, fully integrated into the park, was an important aspect of the design process.  

 the Landscape Architect   the Landscape Architect

Allegheny Square

Buhl Community Park

<span style=""><span style="">Composed of thousands of translucent, white plastic squares that move in the wind, the artwork is intended to suggest that the building has been enveloped by a digitized cloud. The optical qualities of the skin change dramatically with the weather and the time of day. The articulated skin is supported by an aluminum space frame so it appears to float in front of the building. The design evolved through a collaboration with the architects, Koning / Eizenberg.</span></span>

Pittsburgh Children's Museum

Articulated Cloud

 A 20-foot diameter sphere of fog forms inside a forest of stainless steel poles. High-pressure fog nozzles embedded in the 30-foot tall poles convert water into a cloud that appears and vanishes every few minutes. 

Cloud Arbor

This 5000 square-meter facade of a new parking structure at the airport is covered with 250,000 hinged aluminum panels that sway in the breeze. The panels are perforated and anodized to render a photograph of a mast of a sailing ship reflected in water. The photograph of this man-made line distorted by the turbulent surface of water was taken in the nearby Brisbane River. As wind animates the facade, the huge photographic rendering is further distorted by nature. The installation, which was a collaboration with UAP, is one of the largest works of art in Australia.

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video shows the action of the waves.
                                            
                                        

A sound sculpture that is played by dropping pebbles down through a matrix of tuned stainless steel nails. 


A 100' long by 12' tall curved, tilted wall made of perforated stainless steel with mist sprayers along the top edge. The billowing mist serves to dematerialize the edge of the artwork while providing a cooling environment for people walking along the path. 

Encircled Stream - Water flows into a six-foot diameter basin surrounded by a gear-shaped granite bench and forms a large whirlpool. As the basin fills, the whirlpool undergoes a series of complex changes as it goes from turbulent to orderly flow and then back again. The spiral pattern of the water and granite is repeated in the stone paving pattern which swirls out from the fountain and extends throughout the plaza

 The sculpture consists of fog responding to changing air currents. 

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video shows how the facade moves with the wind.
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video shows how the sculpture's pieces move in the wind.
                                            
                                        

This is a time lapse video of the sculpture in motion.

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video documents the aluminum hinged elements that sway in the wind.
                                            
                                        

Wind Portal - BART Station, San Francisco International Airport
The artwork consists of 200,000 mirrored disks which respond to the air currents generated by passing trains and the natural wind passing through the BART Station. The stainless steel disks encircle a 55' diameter by 12' deep hole in the main level of the station, through which escalators and stairs run. The myriad of tiny mirrors reflect colors from people's clothing as they pass through the portal, creating an ever-changing mosaic of light, sculpted by the wind. 

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                This video depicts the movement of water in his installation, "Rain Oculus". 
                                            
                                        

A series of devices that shoot rings of fog, at random intervals, up through the vertical space between the buildings of the new hotel / contemporary art museum complex. The rings start a story below grade and drift up above the tops of the buildings. The rings are visible from the street as well as from hotel windows that look into the courtyard. They are lit by natural sunlight during the day and a series of spotlights at night.

The video shows the facade elements moving in the wind.

A series of wave generators in a shallow reflecting pool that encircles the building, creates a series of large circular ripples, like huge rain drops falling in a lake, that spread out through the pool in ever changing patterns. An array of thousands of 3"x3" mirrors set into the space between the glass layers of the curtain wall are aimed down to reflect small, moving "snapshots" of the water surface. As the ripples move across the pool, the mirror array digitizes the flow pattern. Even though the viewers are only actually seeing small snapshots of the wave patterns, the mind fills in the voids. The artwork takes the surface of the water, something that people are used to seeing, and subtly converts it into something novel and intriguing. The array of mirrors also functions as a sun shade for the building.

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                This is a short video of the sculpture in motion
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                A 20-foot diameter sphere of fog forms inside a forest of stainless steel poles. High-pressure fog nozzles embedded in the 30-foot tall poles convert water into a cloud that appears and vanishes every few minutes. A collaboration with landscape architect Andi Cochran and the Pittsburgh Children’s Museum. Completed in 2012.
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video shows the movement of the facade.
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video shows the interactive sculpture.
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                This is a video of the water installation.
                                            
                                        
                                            
                                        

                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                                                            
                                            
                                            
                                                The video shows the wall in motion.
                                            
                                        
                                            
                                        

Cloud Arbor

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Images

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Landscape

Public Art