Phantom Formwork

At the Centro site, we imagined the public art enhancing the landscape's role as a refuge from the heavy traffic interchange of Columbia Pike and George Mason Drive.  The lush meadow-like plantings and circular seating areas adjacent encourage users to pause along the path.  We saw an opportunity to strengthen this invitation by creating a vertical point of interest within the low-level plantings and providing shade and enclosure at the seating area

Phantom Formwork is a wire mesh cube carved with a subtracted tubular void creating a place of inhabitation. Its geometries are loosely inspired by the architectural language of the transit infrastructure linking Arlington to the Capitol. The forms associated with subterranean concrete are recontextualized in a lush garden setting as a ghostly white mesh that offset the colorful lush garden that surrounds it. 

Status
Built
Client
Village Center / Orr Partners / Arlington County Public Art Collection 
Landscape Archtecture
Oculus Landscape Architecture and Urban Design
Fabrication Partner
Motherbuilt
Photography
Alia Horvath