designwire daily | Bucky Fuller-Inspired Installation at Houston Research Facility

Bucky Fuller-Inspired Installation at Houston Research Facility

by Deborah Wilk | Tuesday, August 30, 2011

As the health-care sector of the industry continues to surge, we’re delighted to watch clients realize how large a part design can play in healing and wellness, not to mention quests for cures. The latest such project to cross our path is the University of Texas’s Center for Advanced Biomedical Imaging Research. Part of the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, the facility was designed by Philo Wilke Partnership, a firm dedicated exclusively to health-care facility design.

Most dazzling is the project’s inclusion of two fine art installations, including a glass work facilitated by that material’s specialty honcho, Bendheim. Local artist Jo Ann Fleischhauer drew inspiration from Buckminster Fuller’s spherical fullerene (or Buckyball) to create a metaphor for the facility’s advances in molecular research. The larger installation, a granite-floored corridor, etched with polyhedral forms that are reflected in the mirrored ceiling, is titled Leonardo Dialogo, referencing the Old Master’s equal billing as an inventor, scientist, and artist. The corridor walls are stenciled with the Fibonacci sequence, a system of numeration dating to the 13th century, still used to foster algorithms and define physical properties in nearly every contemporary sphere of practical progress, from Wall Street financial houses to laboratories seeking solar-powered energy solutions.

For a 12-by-24-foot floating canopy in an administrative area, Fleischhauer opted to work with the mouth-blown panels of Lamberts glass, the 70-year-old German purveyor. In collaboration with Martin Demaine, an artist-in-residence and visiting scientist in computer science, and Erik Demaine, associate professor in computer science, both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Fleischhauer designed a pattern of polyhedrals that were waterjet cut into the 47 22-by-30-inch panels. Each 55-pound glass sheet is suspended by a metal rod connected to each of its four corners, and the expanse is illuminated by LEDs. The result is a stunning collection of refracted rays that shine on simple white walls. Passing such kaleidoscopic imagery on a daily basis is sure to put those searching for ideas and answers yet to come to fruition in the right mindset for creative thought.