Norris Street Underpass, from Making Connections
© 2016
Location: proposal
Copper-finished steel vanes that spring from columns mounted in sidewalk, edge-lit with LED's
winner of the Outstanding Team Award (Interdisciplinary) of the Community Design Collaborative
This was the design for improving the underpass that connects two disparate neighborhoods in North Philadelphia, making a rather grim, dark tunnel more welcoming. I collaborated with a team of architects, lighting designers, and other disciplines drafted by the Community Design Collaborative. The design is an abstract version of a stand of trees whose branches reach out overhead, 15 feet in the air, rippling synchonously overhead like snakes dancing in chorus lines, drawing you in to the underpass. Each snake, 10 to 20 feet long, is a 14-inch wide ribbon of copper, patinated green, with LED lighting tucked into it's edges. These branches gather at several points on either side of the tunnel in absract tree trunks that stand on the sidewalk. The trees at either entrance to the underpass extend their branches well out over the open street, inspired by Hector Guimard's fan-shaped canopies for the Metro stations in Paris.
