KENDALL SQUARE GARAGE SCREENS
French 2D was commissioned to create a graphic facade to wrap an existing garage structure in Kendall Square. We created a pattern that could transform and speak across scales, reflecting the location of the project between a residential neighborhood and the rapidly growing technology hub of Kendall Square. The resulting large scale graphic scrim, measuring 26,000 square feet, employs a tension frame and mesh fabric facade system by Facid North America, and was engineered and installed by Design Communications, Ltd. Its pattern is a play on architectural detail and shadow effects that are meant to swirl, drift, and articulate into 'characters' along the garage's long side, blurring and expanding the boundaries of two-dimensional and three-dimensional perception.
In order to consolidate the reading of the structure as a single icon for its changing context in the Cambridge neighborhood, we sought to present a protobuilding that could be read through the multi-scale articulation of its facade, as both applied decoration and object. The design manifests as a hybrid between large scale canvas and functional façade.
For the photography of the completed work, we acted as our own drawing scale figures in custom dresses of the same pattern as the garage.
The design was approved, with accolades, from the Cambridge Planning Department and completed in the Spring of 2019
2019
Photography, John Horner Photography
Images provided by French 2D. All rights reserved.
