Client: Caruth/Preston Road Associates, LTD

Overview

Trust is a four-story steel sculpture finished with multiple weather resistant layers. Every aspect from design drawings to installation is engineered. Installation concept and process began with the first design. It was fabricated at the former Hughes Tool facility in Houston with independent AWS inspections. Design and fabrication was with state-of the-art Autocad Inventor, CAD driven water jet cut steel, and to petrochemical plant tolerances. Finish application was performed in a dedicated three-story, 50’ x 100’, lighted-to-daylight, industrial paint booth. Installation included three flatbed tractor-trailers, an 80-ton crane, a 45’ manlift and a 25’ extended boom forklift.

Goals

The sculpture is the key aesthetic up-grade in the revitalization of a 40-year old, high-end shopping plaza. Design criteria included the visible expression of joy, intimately close and from two quarter-mile distant main highways over mature live-oak trees. The process required open stakeholder communication. Large-scale public sculpture creation demands working with the stakeholders; who generally include the artist, commissioning agent, architects, general contractors, fabricators and finishers, lighting designers, transportation specialists, and installation professionals. My recent Trust sculpture for the Preston Plaza in Dallas, Texas is a prime example of my successfully working with the complete array of stakeholders. As the centerpiece for a renewal of an open-air shopping plaza, Trust is located in the Plaza’s primary traffic circle. It is the center of a high volume vehicular system overlying the nexus of the site’s subterranean infrastructure. In addition to the artist, the project team included the commissioning and funding stakeholders, the O’Michael Studios, Inc. Technical Partner, two architectural firms, two structural engineering firms, a general contractor, an industrial fabricator, my art consultant, the installation contractor, and myself. Consensus was maintained through many meetings where varying requirements of parties were concluded within the project’s aesthetics, engineered structural criteria and budget.

Process

The artist began collaboration with the initial design. There were many subsequent meetings and conference calls. For certain decisions, there were as many as twenty people in the meetings. Much research, cost and resource evaluation was made prior to finalized decisions on material, foundation, coating, lighting, etc. During the entire process, each stakeholder closely monitored their budget requirements, communicating restrictions and changes to the various parties involved. Every detail is evaluated by engineering for structural stability, durability, installation ease and aesthetic cohesiveness with the collective objectives of the artist, stakeholders and site requirements.

Additional Information

Trust was delivered safely, on-time and in-budget. This is consistent with the entirety of O’Michael Studios, Inc.’s history. Trust is about unity, collaborative and cooperative service. Each element apparently moves separately yet support each other. Located in the central point of the plaza, it celebrates the unity of the customers’ satisfaction an the stores’ success.