Studio AI Architects collaborated with New York-based artist Stephen Talasnik on the structural design and engineering of "Stream: A Folded Drawing" — a major site-specific bamboo installation commissioned by the Storm King Art Center in Mountainville, New York. The work was part of 5+5: New Perspectives, Storm King's celebrated 50th anniversary exhibition, which opened in June 2010.

Stream consisted of more than 3,000 bamboo poles tied together with stainless-steel connections to form a monumental structure 12 feet high and 90 feet long — occupying an isolated slope between two oak trees at the foot of Isamu Noguchi's 1978 granite sculpture Momo Taro.

Talasnik — whose drawings are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Centre Pompidou, the British Museum, and the Albertina — works at the intersection of drawing, sculpture, and architecture, relying on intuition rather than measurement.

Studio AI provided the structural framework that allowed the bamboo skin to be realized at the scale and permanence the commission demanded. The completed installation survived an earthquake, a hurricane, and one of the worst winters of snowfall recorded in the Hudson Valley. (Source: State Department).

Installation time lapse video

Steven Talasnik: Stream video

During their years as Project Managers at Rafael Viñoly Architects, Studio AI co-founder Mateo Paiva served as the architect coordinating the installation of Richard Serra's "The Hedgehog and the Fox" (2000) directly with Serra himself — managing the complex logistics of siting and installing one of the most significant works of public sculpture on any American university campus.

The work consists of three serpentine sheets of Cor-Ten weathering steel, each 94 feet long and 15 feet high, installed between Peyton and Fine Halls adjacent to Princeton Stadium. Commissioned by Princeton graduate Peter Joseph in honor of his children, the sculpture was designed to adapt itself to the curves of the stadium in the background — creating what Serra described as a visual continuum between art and architecture.

Coordinating a Serra installation demands an unusually close working relationship between architect and artist and the University. Serra's practice — no grinding, no painting, no digital measurement, each piece bearing the marks of its own making — requires the kind of precise logistical and spatial thinking that bridges architecture and sculpture.

For Mateo, the experience of working directly with Serra on the installation of a work at this scale was formative — an early lesson in how art and architecture can occupy the same space without one subordinating the other.

Studio AI Architects with EOC Engineers designed the structural engineering and construction framework for "Mobius Houston" (2019) — a major public sculpture by New York-based Uruguayan artist Marta Chilindron, commissioned by the Public Art of the University of Houston System (Public Art UHS) as the inaugural piece of its new Temporary Public Art Program. Local fabrication and assembly was managed by Metalab Studio in Houston.

At 11 feet tall and 22 feet wide, Mobius Houston was Chilindron's first large-scale public art installation in Texas — a significant scale-up from her smaller 2013 Mobius series. The sculpture is composed of colorful transparent trapezoids that fold and overlap, creating new colors at every intersection. Both transparent and reflective, its shadows are cast in color throughout the day as the sun moves across the sky. The work was installed at Wilhelmina's Grove on the University of Houston campus in October 2019.

Chilindron's practice explores the relationship between geometry, color, and movement — her collapsible, hinged sculptures in transparent acrylic are held in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Blanton Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, El Museo del Barrio, and the Centre Pompidou. Bridging the demands of large-scale structural engineering with the precision of kinetic art is exactly the kind of challenge where architecture and art become indistinguishable.

Artist: Marta Chilindron

Work: Mobius Houston, 2019

Material: Transparent acrylic, structural steel armature

Dimensions: 11 ft high × 22 ft wide

Location: Wilhelmina's Grove, University of Houston, Texas

Commissioned by: Public Art of the University of Houston System (Public Art UHS)

Architect: Studio AI Architects, New York

Structural Engineering Feasibility: EOC Engineers, New York

Local fabrication lead: Metalab Studio, Houston

Project video