When a landowner decides they would like large-scaled art in a project, there is no Best Buy® equivalent where you can browse and purchase art pieces to install in a landscape. The traditional public art process often involves an extended timeframe in which a citizen public art board commissions artwork from artists after a site and building have already been built. Art can lend authenticity and gravitas to a space, but private developers need a process and timeframe that is more integrated into the site. Studio Outside has had the privilege to work closely with artists on several exciting projects that synthesize site and art.

Fiori On Vitruvian Park
Addison, Texas

Fiori, the flagship luxury anchor of Vitruvian Park, had a vision of bespoke artwork elevating the experience of residences living in its 390 units. The art master plan across the whole site included a large format sculptural piece in the entry roundabout. Since Fiori is Italian for flower, Laura Abrams, the selected artist, proposed a massive corten flower that would capture the essence of the project from the moment visitors arrived.

However, Abrams had never done a project of this scale and it was well beyond the capacity of the foundry next to her home studio. Studio Outside guided the search for an inspired collaborator and made the connection with Baldwin Metals, a foundry that understood the level of craft required.

In addition, Studio Outside brought in the distinguished structural engineering firm Datum Engineers, who are known for taking on complex projects beyond the skillset of most engineers. The torque of the 27’ steel flowers narrowing down to a single point where the petals connect to the base of the flower is immense, but Datum Engineers was able to provide the structural analysis to support the whim and grace of the design. As a final gift of the collaboration together, Baldwin Metals took Abram’s signature and artfully welded a stainless steel copy of it onto one of the petals.

Fiori on Vitruvian Park Team
Client: UDR, Artist: Laura Abrams, Structural: Ponce-Fuess Engineering, Architect: GFF Architects, Landscape: Studio Outside, Structural: Datum Engineers, Lighting: Scott Oldner Lighting Design, Contractor: Andres Construction, Metal Fabrication: Baldwin Metals, sO Team: Chip Impastato & Brad Goodman.

Bank OZK
Little Rock, Arkansas

As a new 44-acre corporate campus in Little Rock, Bank OZK was wrapping up design development when the owner saw an opportunity to incorporate some sizable art pieces throughout the site to give a sense of distinctiveness not only as a place where employees would be proud to work, but as a space to be valued by the surrounding community.

The formal entry sequence supported the idea of a truly substantial piece, which found its match in Pro Terra Et Natura, a pair of bronze water spirits or angels at a maximum height of 40’ that represent Mother Earth and Nature.

The owner had full confidence in what was being purchased through Halcyon Gallery in London as the procurement was for the design of the piece and one had already been installed in Shanghai. As part of including the piece within the site, Studio Outside shifted the east/west access road further south to expand the entry plaza and motor court and worked towards a solution with the civil engineer to accommodate fire lane requirements.

It would have been easy to have the water spirits rise out of landscape planting. However, the owner recognized that would not be in keeping with the original intent of the pieces. Halcyon Gallery felt there had been a missed opportunity with the fountain basin in Shanghai as the complex curves inspired by leaves were not well conveyed with smaller stone tiles over concrete. The artist Wu Ching Ju proposed a highly organic form for the fountain basin with the Little Rock installation based on apple blossoms. Studio Outside was able to translate the complex and abstract shape into a thick stainless steel edging that could withstand vehicular traffic in the motor court, but maintain a sense of purity and simplicity.

As bronze sculptures and water must stay physically separated, there had to be some interpretation on the water spirits rising from the water. The previous iteration placed the sculptures on an exposed concrete plinth that rose out of the water with no sense of magic for the viewer. With close work between Price Myers, the sculpture’s structural engineer in London, Halcyon Gallery, Datum Engineering, and the architect Polk Stanley Wilcox, Studio Outside was able to facilitate a solution in which the concrete is recessed past the shadow line so that the figures perceivably hover over the water.

These subtle details of craft with in-depth technical and artistic collaboration respectfully integrate the fine art of an artist into the site for a seamless and unforgettable experience. Ultimately, that unification elicits the greatest value from the art for the lived experience of people within the space.

Bank OZK Team
Client: Bank OZK, Gallery: Halcyon Gallery, Artist: Wu Ching Ju, Sculpture Structural: Price Myers, Architect: Polk Stanley Wilcox, Landscape: Studio Outside, Structural: Datum Engineers, Lighting: ARUP, Fountain Designer: Fountain Technologies, Contractor: CDI Contractors, sO Team: Chip Impastato, Lisa Casey, Josh Emerson, Charlie Pruitt, and Lu Zhou.

As part of Studio Outside's commitment to the field of landscape architecture, several Outsiders have been teaching and co-teaching numerous studios and courses at our local institutions - University of Texas at Arlington and University of Texas at Austin. Working with students and faculty in these Masters of Landscape Architecture programs creates many opportunities for us as professionals that are not always available in our day-to-day work. Through teaching, we have the opportunity to support students, influencing the next generation of landscape architects, develop our own research, test new ideas, and engage in important conversations with a wide array of professionals and subject matter experts.

Studio Teaching

This past spring, Outsiders Gwendolyn Cohen, Isaac Cohen, Matt Nicolette, and Tary Arterburn worked with Associate Professor Hope Hasbrouck to teach Landscape Studio IV at UT Austin. This comprehensive design studio focused on an on-structure deck park across I-10 in El Paso. The students completed three phases of the project throughout the semester: Research and Analysis, Schematic Design, and Design Development. Working through the entire design process, they create a DD level document set for the first time. In addition to the challenges of ZOOM studio and the inability to do a site visit, the students were challenged to connect research and conceptual ideas to a construction detail – solving grading challenges, material connections, and programmatic requirements while consistently pushing towards a big conceptual idea.

"Teaching was a great experience to engage with the students and facilitate the synthesis of their diverse, creative concepts into a design development set. It was inspiring to see how each student thought through the problem and navigated the design parameters each in their own unique way, bringing the set together under tight deadlines."

- Matt Nicolette

Outsiders working with students to revise final drawings during one of our few in-person meetings.

Working with this studio allowed us to share our professional practice, individual technical knowledge, and design process. This multi-scale/process thinking greatly benefited from working with the design studio that led to many fruitful conversations both with students and with each other. It was exciting to work with the students through the many challenges of a comprehensive design and see the inspiring work that they produced.

In addition to Studio IV, Gwen and Isaac also had the opportunity to work with students remotely to collaborate with Assistant Professor Maggie Hansen on an Advanced Design Studio – Prairie Time: Growing Dallas's Green Quilt. This studio speculated on the potential of centering human actions of caretaking, alongside the dynamics of landscape materials and site, toward more just and more ecologically rich futures. The focus for the semester was on the urban fabric of Dallas and its position within the Blackland Prairie ecoregion. As a part of the Green New Deal Superstudio, it explored the potential to address the core goals of jobs, justice, and decarbonization while engaging the region's specific context.

The Studio Asked:

How might we envision practices that support other relationships with the land and with each other?
How might caring for urban prairies build a caring city?

As returning guest critics, Gwen and Isaac worked with the students every other Friday to share local knowledge and explored how their ideas might hit the ground in Dallas. This work continues the questions that were asked in 2019 while co-teaching a studio with Assistant Professor Dr. Joowon Im at the University of Texas at Arlington, titled The Prairie's Yield. Living and working in the Blackland Prairie, we are deeply interested in what we can learn from our local ecology, one of the most endangered ecoregions in the United States.

Holistically, we have been thinking about how teaching and asking these critical questions can advance our professional projects. We are always applying new learning and technology, and teaching is one avenue to advancing our knowledge.

Engaging with students over Zoom.

Over the last three years, diving deeply into the history, processes, and importance of the often-misunderstood Tallgrass prairie has been an incredible journey. When the vast majority of residents within the Blackland Prairie have never experienced a remnant prairie and none of us have experienced the expanse of seemingly endless grasslands that once defined this region – How can we design our city with the elements, functions, and experience of the prairie instead of fighting against it? Through this teaching, we discovered that landscape architecture is not the only place these conversations are happening.

UT Arlington student critiques.

Beyond the Studio

This spring, we connected with artists Tamara Johnson and Trey Burns, who run the local Sweet Pass Sculpture Park and launched the Sweet Pass Sculpture School in 2021, "which focuses on site-responsiveness, the speculative, and reflecting connections to the surrounding region and communities" and is focusing on the Texas Blackland Prairie. "SPSS will guide participants on a broad survey of this lost prairie while exploring the embedded histories, hidden natures, and infrastructures in the region. Like decoding stratum in sedimentary rocks, we will examine how the past has shaped the city's construction and look at the resulting impact upon the ecology."

Gwen, Isaac, and Maggie had the opportunity to lead the participants of the Sculpture School for one day through Dallas, visiting three sites – the remnant Frankford Prairie, the Native Texas Park at the George W. Bush Presidential Library, and the 12 Hills Nature Center. We examined these "prairies," asking what made them prairies from plants to processes to people. For one day of the two-week residency, we are excited to see how the artists will respond to what they learned here in Dallas and how they push us to see the prairie differently.

Prairie Tour

In the Spring of 2020 and 2021, Outsider Matt Nicolette taught Professional Practice at the University of Texas at Arlington. This class allowed students to learn about how projects are conceptualized, designed, built, and maintained and what it is like to work as a professional landscape architect. Outsiders Lisa Casey and Emilee Voigt joined as guest lecturers to share their experiences as a project manager and an entry-level designer, respectively. Lisa spoke to the experience and contributions of women in the profession.

These are only a sampling of the ways that Studio Outside engages with students and university programs. We look forward to continuing to give guest lectures, sit on reviews, mentor students, and serve our alma maters. In the last several years, we have had the opportunity to engage with UT Austin, UT Arlington, Iowa State, Kansas State, University of Oregon, LSU, Ohio State, UVA, Texas Tech, and Texas A&M in many capacities.

We look forward to continuing to push landscape architecture forward in ways that inspire both our clients and the future leaders of our field.