Client: City of Malden

Overview

Three whimsical seating elements enliven a multi-use trail in the Boston area, including a spider, tete-a-tete bench and crawling bench.

Goals

The City of Malden commissioned three sculptural benches for the Northern Strand Trail, a regional shared-use 11.5 miles path from Everett to Lynn, Massachusetts, with the goal of being to bring fun, color and functionality their section of trail.

Process

Working with the Mayor's Office and the Malden Redevelopment Authority, The Malden Arts board held a national competition to select artists to design and fabricate unique elements for specific locations along the trail.
The artworks were fabricated in the artist's studio by repurposing regionally sourced scrap steel propane tanks, which were carefully dissected and reassembled without any additional reshaping of the material, a process with a minimal carbon footprint that produces durable objects that contain 99% post-consumer reused content. All parts were seam welded together to form a very rigid structure with no flat surfaces or pockets for water to collect. To ensure they would be safe for human interaction, all welds and edges were sanded smooth. The artworks were coated in a super durable architectural grade powder coating.