EDITOR'S PICK Metal Mesh Artistry
Wire mesh transforms an everyday street into a virtual outdoor art gallery
The Art Gates at California State University San Marcos in San Marcos, Calif., grew out of a team effort to solve a common design prob- lem: create a security access gate that is both aesthetically pleasing and easy to maintain. Located at the entrance of The Quad, a student housing complex at the corner of a large mixed-use development, North City, Art Gates is a public art piece created from stainless steel wire mesh from Tampa, Fla.-based McNICHOLS Co. The project team, made up of the city; developer
Urban Villages San Marcos, San-Diego-based Safdie Rabines Architects; artist Lisa Schirmer; and metal fabricator Brents Metal Art, San Diego; produced a 72-foot gated fence that has the unmistakable imprint of an artist who sees metal in ways few can. The project collaboration demonstrates how few constraints there are with metal applications when creative and resourceful minds are at work. Schirmer, an artist, painter and graphic de-
signer, was commissioned to create the Art Gates. Having worked with a variety of materials in her pro- fession, it was the characteristics of stainless steel wire mesh that caught her eye for its abundance of patterns and light diffusing qualities. Schirmer envisioned the mesh as a way to turn the gates into a sculpture of abstract images of the plant life indigenous to the San Diego and San Marcos area. “This is a young campus, and I wanted to hon-
or the natural habitat, indigenous people, wildlife and history of the area,” says Schirmer, who was intent on the gates representing these features, especially the succulents like the agave, and other native plants like Echeveria. While commonly known as Art Gates, the proj-
ect’s offi cial title is “A Harmony Parallel to Nature,” a name that defi nes a metal sculpture inspired by nature that was rendered on paper, then with iron and steel metal, where relationships of line, shape, tone and space combine to celebrate the beauty Schirmer observes. In her renderings, Schirmer used a cross-
hatching method—a Renaissance-era drawing technique that builds tones with diagonal and hori- zontal lines—that reminded her of the wire mesh patterns she noticed in McNICHOLS Designer Metals Catalog. Schirmer went on to select nearly 11 different
McNICHOLS wire mesh styles as the core mate- rial, including varieties of McNICHOLS’ Techna, Talica and Ashland products. “I saw how I could depict the plants from the mesh, and how the mesh dovetailed with the cross hatching in my drawing,” says Schirmer. Schirmer worked with the architect, fabricator
and developer to propose the idea to the city and gain approval prior to The Quad’s development. Taal Safdie of Safdie Rabines Architects pro-
64 METAL CONSTRUCTION NEWS November 2013
vided an external frame structure of fencing and gates that included a “grid” of diagonal supports that resonated with the angular lines of the build- ing. “[Schirmer] was able to combine the architec- ture of the lines that jog along the building roofl ine, incorporate ideas from the landscape and turn these into what the fence is all about,” says Safdie. Schirmer notes that because of the subdi-
vision of diagonals within the main frame, the shapes became very manageable in size, so every shape fi t easily onto the sheets of the McNICH- OLS stainless mesh patterns. “It was like sewing a garment using plaid fabric, except the fabric is stainless steel. You lay out your pattern pieces, making sure all plaids align, and then cut.” Fabricator Bill Brents of Brents Metal Art,
came up with the idea to build a frame from tube and solid steel bar that would be hot dip galvanized and acid etched. “The brilliance of the stainless and the matte appearance of the acid-etched gal- vanized bar would contrast nicely, and weather far longer than a painted structure,” says Brents. Working together, a 2- by 3-foot prototype
guided the full-scale version, which is now an as- sembly of fully installed sections comprised of two 10-foot-high gates, a utility gate, and six 8-foot- high fences, each section weighing between 700 and 800 pounds. To fabricate the project, Brents built a frame-
within-a-frame system that fully encapsulates the wire mesh and its frame, making one side of the gates and fence a mirror image of the other with no exposed edges. The entire system is made up of hundreds of pieces of iron fl at bar, more than 300 stainless steel mesh shapes, secured by thou- sands of aluminum and stainless rivets. Providing an artistic entry for student residents
to come and go through, while transforming an everyday street into a virtual outdoor art gallery, the Art Gates project took 18 months and was completed in time for the Fall 2013 semester.
Art Gates at California State University San Marcos, San Marcos, Calif.
Developer: Urban Villages San Marcos Architect: Safdie Rabines Architects, San Diego Artist: Lisa Schirmer, San Diego Fabricator: Brents Metal Art, San Diego Wire mesh: McNICHOLS Co., Tampa, Fla.,
www.mcnichols.com, Circle #75
www.metalconstructionnews.com
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