Client: The City of Aurora, CO

Overview

“Aspire” is a multi-element, early-integration design-team project for a new Recreation Center in the City of Aurora, Colorado. The largest-ever public artwork for the City, this integrated installation celebrates the positive expression of the kinesthetic activities taking place within the Recreation Center facility.

Goals

Meant to inspire wellness and wholeness, this project is integrated into a community recreation center. The imagery in glass and the shaped movements in the atrium sculpture record the rhythmic beauty and kinesthetic movements of the human body in motion. The hope is that this artwork, visible from the exterior of the Recreation Center by day or night, will serve as an accessible and warm beacon inviting the neighborhood and community of Aurora into this new public facility. 

Process

This was an early-integration collaboration between the artists, an architecture firm, and City personnel. Working alongside Populous Architects, the artists designed 4 separate elements to integrate into diverse areas of the architecture. Both expressive and functional, these pieces respond to the physical rhythms and movements within the Recreation Center, creating a fresh perspective on human physical potential.

Additional Information

The project consists of 4 integrated elements. The 3 art-glass pieces, in the lobby, natatorium and gymnasium, are created with hand-painted vitreous enames, acid-etching and silver-stain on architectural plate glass. The illuminated atrium sculpture is constructed of multiple pieces of painted tubular steel. The fabricators were Derix Glasstudios, Taunusstein, Germany; and Demiurge Design, Denver, Colorado.