PROJECT TYPE: Public Art Commission
LOCATION: Bank of America Tower in downtown Houston, Texas
CLIENT AND COLLABORATORS: Skanska Development Corporation, Grace Zuninga Creative Director at Sawyer Yards
COMPLETED: 2019
Rain is an installation of a large scale painted water body with glistening rain drops. It’s created from layers of paint and pure pigment on a 20’ x 12’ wall. Acrylic sculptures welded from mirrored acrylic sheet create three dimensional prismatic water beads.
The work was inspired by Houston’s dramatic rainstorms in the summer months. The work is made to be experienced from a variety of vantage points. The mirrored acrylic sculptures are multidimensional at different angles and seem to change shape when passing by. Viewed straight-on, the blue mirrors reflect back but with a blue overtone as if underwater.
Photography by Paul Hester
Project Type: Residential Garden
Houston, TX
2020, constructed
In collaboration with LOJO Architecture
Landscape Contractor: Telloc Lifescapes
The pocket prairie flanks the corner of an urban neighborhood just north of Downtown Houston. Currently in the establishment phase, the pocket prairie was planted with a mix of nursery-grown containers, custom native seed mixes, and live root plant saplings for the best establishment of wildflowers and grasses. The prairie is dynamic each day as it catches the sun and shade against the grey metal of the house facade. Throughout the year it blooms in yellow, white, lavender, and pink against a backdrop of finely textured wild grasses with cloud-like seed heads dancing in the wind.
Project Type: Landscape Research
Partners: SPARK and the Powell Foundation
The nature toolkit for Houston public schools is a research project that creates design ideas and best management practices for fostering a connection between kids and the natural world through the design of playspaces in public school parks.
Natural Elements Integration: Incorporate natural materials such as wood, rocks, and water features to create a sensory-rich environment that stimulates curiosity and imagination.
Play Structures: Design custom play structures inspired by natural forms to provide opportunities for climbing, balancing, and imaginative play.
Educational Signage: Install informative signage throughout the playground area, educating children and caregivers about local flora, fauna, and ecological principles, fostering environmental awareness and stewardship.
Accessible Pathways and Interactive elements: Ensure accessibility for children of all abilities by incorporating smooth pathways, ramps, and sensory-rich surfaces, promoting inclusive play experiences. Provide inclusive design strategies for neurodivergent kids.
Shade Structures: Integrate shaded areas using natural elements such as pergolas, native trees, and vegetation, providing relief from the sun and creating comfortable gathering spaces for families.
The Abandoned Garden, an imagined ecology artwork by Falon Mihalic for Radio Tave in Meow Wolf Houston
Services: Design, fabrication, and install, 600 square foot sculptural mural completed 2024
Commissioned by Meow Wolf. Photos courtesy of Meow Wolf | Photo by: Kate Russell
Project Credits
Falon Mihalic, Lead Artist. Falon Land Studio
Creative Contributors
Sound Design
Installation Assistant
Senior Show Audio Designer
Creative Production Intern
Lighting Designer
Artist Liaison
Production Designer
Creative Production Coordinator
Show Coordinator
Creative Producer
Installation Assistant
Production Designer
Senior Manager, Creative Production
Project Type: Private Garden
Collaborators: Dillon Kyle Architects, Gandy Lighting Design, CLW Landscape, SL Anderson Urban Arborists
in progress, 2020-present
A whimsical garden of custom topiary sculptures and curvy patterns punctuated with lush tropical foliage. This project features a curvy boomerang pool like a Thomas Church kidney bean but with sleeker curves. A mix of groudcovers and gravel gestures create a patterned landscape.
Project Type: Landscape Architecture, Garden Design, Residential Garden
Services: Design through Construction Administration
Collaborators: Rivers Barden Architects
Year: 2021-present
Project Type: Interactive playspace and STEAM learning area
Collaborators: SLA Architects, River Bend Nature Center
in progress, 2021- present
This project transforms a blank concrete terrace into an engaging artsy STEAM plaza play space for kids. There will be oversized butterflies, interactive musical instruments, fort building, gardening, and more at this renovated nature educational center in North Texas.
Project Type: Immersive Light Art Installation, Data Driven Light Art with Projection Mapping, Public Programming
Public Launch: April 24, 2021 at the Train Shed in Sawyer Yards
Partners: Project space provided by Sawyer Yards Arts Campus and supported in part by the Houston Arts Alliance and the Houston Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
The Bayou Beacon is an environmental light sculpture that expresses water fluctuations of White Oak Bayou. This project uses water quality monitoring data to express water level and flow in a para-metrically designed light sculpture installed in the train shed at Sawyer Yards.
Houston’s bayous shape the city. The bayous fluctuate with varying levels of rainfall, but that action of moving and flowing stormwater is always happening in the background.
We designed the Bayou Beacon with the hope of bringing to light the inherent resilience of the bayous as highly functional green infrastructure.
Special Thanks
Many collaborators contributed to bringing this work to fruition. Fuko Nara, Assistant Designer at Falon Land Studio, led the creative coding and technology components as well as created the animation and hand-built the scaled model prototypes for previous iterations of the installation. Clint Allen, of New Aspect Design, consulted on the projection mapping, theater lighting components, and projection screen fabrication. Matt Felsen, independent creative technologist in Brooklyn, provided early technology consultation for the data expression design. Grace Zuninga, Creative Director at Sawyer Yards, provided the space to us and supported the marketing efforts for the event. Sara Van Buskirk and Jacob Spacek provided installation and de-installation assistance for custom built components. Projectors and lighting components provided by 4Wall.
#theBayouBeacon
Project Type: Landscape Design
Eastham Thomason park is large park in the center of Huntsville, Texas. We were engaged to enhance the new playspace with interpretative nature elements. An imaginative fort-building and rock circle is sited at the confluence of the major walking trails and custom signage prompts kids to be curious about the nature that surrounds them.
The landscape for the new Champions Golf Course pavilion focuses on natives that blend seamlessly with the natural setting of the course.
Collaboration with Rivers Barden Architects and Studio WAL
Project Type: Community Park and Nature Playspace
Partners: SPARK Parks
Location: Southwest Houston
The Tinsley Park is a community space and nature playspace for the students at Tinsley Elementary School. The project aims to create an innovative and engaging recreational space within the community park, fostering a connection between children and the natural environment. This project seeks to reimagine traditional playground concepts by integrating elements inspired by nature, promoting exploration, creativity, and physical activity in a safe and inclusive environment.
Project Type: Land Art Installation in collaboration with 45 musicians
Collaborators: Sydney Boyd, Brandon Bell, Doug Perkins, Kati Gullick, Claire Wagner
Partners: Moody Center for the Arts, Humanities Research Center at Rice University. With support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities
Services Provided: design, fabrication, assembly, install
About the work: Hailed as “…the ultimate environmental piece” by The New York Times, Inuksuit is a concert-length (60-70’) work that brings musicians and community members together with the environment. The title refers to the Stonehenge-like markers used by the Inuit and other native peoples to orient themselves in Arctic spaces. Adams structured the rhythmic layers in the score to mimic these stone shapes, but undefined areas of the score also exist that allow individual interpretation of the music that reflects the sense of freedom conveyed in the work.
Scored for between nine and 99 percussionists playing drums, cymbals, gongs, glockenspiels, sirens, and a host of other instruments, the work creates a sonic landscape that surrounds the audience. Performers are widely dispersed and move throughout a large, open area. Audience members are encouraged to move freely around the performance area to discover their own individual listening points. The work is intended to expand our awareness of the never-ending music of the world in which we live, transforming seemingly vacant space into more fully experienced place.
About the composer: John Luther Adams (b. 1953) is one of America’s most-performed living composers. Having spent the majority of his adult life living in Alaska, his work is uniquely imbued with a heightened sense of eco-awareness. His orchestral work, Become Ocean, was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize in Music. Writing in The New Yorker, critic Alex Ross described John Luther Adams as "one of the most original musical thinkers of the new century."
Project Type: Permanent Public Art Commission
Completed 2020
Commissioning Agency: Houston Downtown Management District
Consultant and Fabrication Team: Craft Structural Engineering, Pfeiffer Electric, Robertson Surfacing, Flying Carpet Creative, Polk Street Studios’ Kelly O’Brien and Justin Hughes
Meander is a permanent public art installation in Downtown Houston’s Historic Market Square Park. Nestled under the live oak trees, it is a playable interactive piece evoking the meander of Buffalo Bayou.
Project Type: Residential Garden
Collaborators: Content Architecture, Haskins Design Build, Merge Fabrication
2021, completed
Winner, Texas Society of Architects Design Award, 2022
Winner, AIA Houston Design Award, 2021
Tucked into the Houston Heights neighborhood, this garden is a low-water landscape augmented by a specimen Japanese Maple Tree and native grasses. The back features a small pool and zoysia lawn with custom metal planters and trellises.
Photography: Leonid Furmansky
TOPO is a living art installation commissioned for the new Outdoor Voices retail store in the Houston Heights Mercantile. Inspired by the Astrodome and Houston’s lush subtropical landscape, TOPO creates a living stadium of artificial turf with living plants.
Invited proposal for Meow Wolf’s Las Vegas location. Magic Rocks is an interactive immersive artwork of fun, funky rocks.
PROJECT TYPE: Specialty indoor learning gardens and exterior landscape design
SERVICES: landscape design, indoor planting support, plant selection, soil specifications
2018-Phase One
COLLABORATORS: Produced in collaboration with SLA Architects for the River Bend Nature Center Phase One Renovations in Wichita Falls, Texas
PROJECT TYPE: Public Art
LOCATION: Emancipation Park, Houston TX
SERVICES PROVIDED:
Concept development, design, project management, fabrication and installation
SIZE: 12’x4x’3’
Climate Pulse is an environmental light sculpture that responds to changes in temperature and humidity. Powered by 2400 programmed LED lights, the sculpture emits a glow of color based on ambient temperature. At high humidity levels, the lights sparkle to warn of impending rain. The artwork is sited in Houston’s Emancipation Park through winter of 2018. Climate Pulse was designed as a parametric sculpture with responsive lighting integrated into the structure of 88 ribs. The ribs are joined together to span 12 feet.
Climate Pulse is a public art project with support from the Houston Arts Alliance and the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
Collaborators:
Ross Wienert, Architectural Designer
Matt Felsen, Interactive Technologist
Mike Garman, Fabrication
Project Type: Public Art
2018
East End Esplanade. Houston, Texas
With support from the Kaboom Foundation Play Everywhere Challenge.
Partners: East End Management District, Cultura East End, East End Farmer’s Market
Playshapes is a set of extra large building shapes for kids to construct their own imaginative playspaces. The project had its debut at the 2018 Annual Pinata Fest, a celebration of artful large scale pinatas made by local artists. The Playshapes colors were chosen based on the previous year’s award-winning Pinata. The playshapes made from high density foam and covered in waterproof material that’s durable for outdoor use. This project is funded by a grant from the Kaboom Foundation as part of the Play Everywhere Challenge and produced in partnership with the East End Foundation.
Project Type: Multifamily Housing Landscape
Partners: Avenue CDC, Living Paradigm CDC
Consultant Team: NDA Architects, Jones Carter Civil Engineers
For a new multifamily housing complex on 34th Street, the design is distinctively drought tolerant for a resilient landscape of native plants and crushed rock mulch. The goal with this project is to produce a landscape that’s recognizably sustainable and creates a larger impact on the surrounding urban context. Thus, the street medians are also being adopted as part of the project to tie-into a resilient landscape strategy.
Project type: Landscape Planting design and resilient maintenance practices
Partners: Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County (METRO)
In the second phase of work with METRO, the TMC transit plaza gets a landscape overhaul to create a robust pocket prairie that absorbs water and provides a new engaging lush landscape of native plants. Featuring dozens of different native species of wildflowers, grasses, and shrubs, the landscape plan reimagines what a transit hub could look and feel like.
Our maintenance practices guide for the transit center focused on how to create a more comfortable microclimate with changed pruning practices and the addition of many shade trees.
PROJECT TYPE: Public Art, Urban Plaza Design
LOCATION: Baltimore, Maryland
SERVICES PROVIDED:
Concept design, invited proposal as short-listed artist team for Baltimore's Public Art-in-Transit Red Line Project
COLLABORATOR:
Graham Coreil-Allen of Graham Projects
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
The project combines large, brightly lit iconic symbols with colorful walkways leading transit users from the Red Line station mezzanine towards their neighborhood’s most significant sites. The inspiration for Poppleton Paths came from our experience walking the neighborhood and seeing embedded footprints and handwriting in patched and newly-poured concrete sidewalks. Deliberately made by residents over the decades, the acts of physically marking the ground traces personal histories of place. It is with that intention that we want to represent the movement of people from the Poppleton station to meaningful neighborhood locations.
Poppleton Paths is a visually striking, walkable map that accomplishes three goals: embraces community-based symbolism, highlights pedestrian movement through color and references the local watershed with integrated drainage structures.
PROJECT TYPE: Public Art, Community Playground
LOCATION: BakerRipley Leonel Castillo Community Center, Houston Texas
SERVICES PROVIDED:
Concept development, project management, custom interactive sculpture design, site design, construction administration
SIZE: 3,000 square feet
Esquina de Musica is an interactive musical sculpture playground for kids at the Leonel Castillo Community Center in Houston, Texas. The playable instruments are custom created for the project.
Partnerships: Open Architecture Houston, BakerRipley, Greater Northside Management District
Project Type: Landscape Architecture, Public Art, Community Engagement, Social Practice
Size: 1.67 Acres
Location: Gulfton Neighborhood, Southwest Houston
Project Description: Community Design collaboration with Open Architecture Houston, Connect Community, and Houston Southwest MultiServices Center
Work in Progress, 2017
Master Plan completed 2017, currently in construction
Size: 35 Acres
The Resort Village Master Plan in the Florida panhandle is creating spaces for people to connect to a pristine natural environment on 35 acres of barrier island property. Nestled within the SGPOA on St. George Island, the Resort Village encompasses a kayak launch, recreational courts, and a series of hiking trails.
PROJECT TYPE: Park Artwalk Competition Proposal
LOCATION: Bastrop, Texas
SERVICES PROVIDED: Concept Design
SIZE: 22 acres
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Overall Concept
The concept weaves together cultural and natural history of the Bastrop community by creating spaces that celebrate the people, geology, plants, and ecosystems of the region. The integrated spaces are built from local natural materials. Each space celebrates an aspect of the Bastrop community.
Celebrate People: Heritage Post Site Marker, 14 Total
The site markers, shown on the schematic plan as orange rectangles, are four-sided wood posts made from reclaimed Pine beams. Each side of the beam has carved text relevant to the languages, people, and history of the four prominent cultural groups that have lived in the Bastrop area. The four cultural groups are Native Americans, Mexicans, Africans, and Anglo Settlers. Each of these different peoples have a distinct culture to be represented each on one side of the Pine beam. Examples of text for the heritage posts might include poetry, stories, place-names, famous people, and significant dates. Together, each four-sided Pine beam represents a facet of the cultural and ethnic history of the region. The Heritage Post Site Markers are located at identified “gateways” throughout the Walk. The first posts flank either side of the walkway into the park and the additional posts mark sequenced spaces along the walk.
Celebrate Ecosystems: Texas Hill Country Wildflower Meadow and Texas Mesquite Savanna Boardwalk
The existing wildflower meadow is enhanced with seeded and transplanted native wildflowers and grasses including Sunflower Goldeneye, Velvetleaf Senna, Little Bluestem, Pink Evening Primrose, Rain Lily, Zexmenia, White Mistflower, Hill Country Penstemon, Four-nerve Daisy, and Winecup. These flowers and grasses are native to the region and create a colorful textured canvas for integrating additional permanent public artworks and sculptures within the park.
The Boardwalk is a subtly elevated wooden deck walk four feet wide that arcs through a planting of Texas Mesquite trees and Little Bluestem grasses. It is meant to be a discovery walk adjacent to the main path of the park that allows visitors to experience a slice of the Mesquite Savanna ecosystem.
Celebrate Geology and History: Limestone Plaza with Curved Seating
Using locally sourced limestone, a plaza with a curved seat wall is integrated into the path between existing mature trees. The plaza stones and stone seating area are designed to integrate various types of limestone rock relevant to different periods in Texas geologic history. The stones have embedded text about the geology endemic to the Edwards Plateau, the Lost Pines, and the formation of Limestone rock related to the prehistoric conditions of Texas.
Celebrate Plants: Loblolly Pine Grove Planting
As an homage to the special stand of “Lost Pines”, the loblolly pine grove is a loose grid of Pinus taeda trees planted in a drift from the limestone plaza and continuing north to the Wildflower Meadow. The pines should be planted from seedlings by volunteers as a way to teach the public about reforestation and forest management practices.
Celebrate People: Terraced Amphitheater
The amphitheater is a gathering space for watching movies, spoken-word performances, and contemporary plays. The terraced space is graded into the existing land to form a half-circle that joins the existing park pathway. Near the main path and parking area, the amphitheater is positioned to host lively arts events that celebrate today’s arts and cultural programs.
PROJECT TYPE: Wilderness Park Design, work in progress
LOCATION: St. George Island, Florida
SERVICES PROVIDED: Ecological design, concept design, ecosystem design, native plant palette design
SIZE: 5 acres
PROJECT DESCRIPTION: How do you design access into a pristine wilderness while respecting the beauty and remoteness of the place? You work with a light hand and design with minimal materials: wood, sand, crushed shells, water, fire, native plants. These designs in progress for a barrier island in the Florida panhandle create spaces for watching bald eagles and wading birds in Apalachicola Bay and for discovering colonies of rare native plants growing on the island's interior. Boardwalks connect to sloughs within the Bay and to interior freshwater ponds fed by rain. The goal is to connect people to nature for everyday enjoyment.
PROJECT TYPE: Public Art Installation
LOCATION: Houston, Texas
SERVICES PROVIDED: Concept development, Art Direction, Studio fabrication and install, graphic design, radical cartography, public programming
PROJECT DESCRIPTION:
Color Clouds is a site specific public art installation that celebrates the unique skyscape over Houston. Made of polychrome mesh, the installation is inspired by the changing colors of storm clouds in Houston during the summer.
ARTIST STATEMENT:
Color Clouds is part of my continuing development of immersive, colorful landscape spaces that reference local phenomena. I'm astonished by the deep blue that builds on the underside of thunderhead clouds as storms push over the city from the Gulf of Mexico. Late afternoon sunlight catches the upper wisps of these clouds and they reflect creamy pink and bright purple tones. As a public project, the installation serves as a gateway into the experience of cloudgazing in the city. #HouClouds
Project Type: Landscape Architecture, Public Art, Idea Competition
Size: Varies by specific installation
Location: Calgary, Alberta Canada
Project Description:
The Pink Sink is a proposal to convert the lost space of a long and narrow highway median into a space for carbon sequestration and environmental public art. The primary design goal, "the SINK", is to remove carbon dioxide from the air near the highway. The secondary design goal, "the PINK", marks the space of the carbon sink median by painting the curbs, and installing pink light posts that make environmental data visible to the public. Carbon is removed from the atmosphere through planting and soil amelioration strategies: 1) the mix of plants are selected for the most e ective carbon storage pathways year-round and 2) biological charcoal (aka biochar) is added to the soil as an amendment to increase carbon storage in the ground. These strategies are based on how plants take in carbon dioxide and use it for photosynthesis and how plant communities, together with soils, e ectively store carbon. The planting strategy is informed by Great Plains Prairie and Boreal Conifer Forest functions but does not exactly replicate those ecosystems. Instead, it is a hybrid "Piney Grassland" constructed for success in the urban realm and to take advantage of the best carbon storage mechanisms of both ecosystem types. The curbs around the median are painted bright pink to clearly mark the site with a bold line. Pink light posts create a landmark and provide data that teaches the public about how much carbon is sequestered onsite.
PROJECT TYPE: Public Art Proposal
A night-time spectacle, Moon Mist is a light and water sculpture in the form of a crescent moon.
