Notes from the studio.
How public art gets commissioned, designed, engineered and built. Written for the developers, architects and councils who have to make it happen, and for anyone curious about what sits behind the work.
Cash in lieu, or a commission?Many Perth councils let a developer pay the public art contribution into a fund instead of commissioning a work. What each route actually gets you, honestly.
The unbuilt onesThree competition concepts that were never built, and what each one still taught the studio. On losing well.
School commissions: designing for 1,500 teenagersFour schools, six artworks, one audience nobody else designs for. What makes public art work on an education site, and what it takes to survive one.
Brick, turned toward meaningCustom extrusions, rotated faces, directional stain and lenticular walls. How the studio makes artwork out of the most ordinary material on a building site.
Art that does a jobFences, shade screens, benches and entry statements delivered as artwork. How a piece of infrastructure the project needs anyway becomes the thing people remember.
From render to crane: how a public artwork actually gets builtBetween the approved concept and the finished artwork sits engineering, shop drawings, prototypes and a crane. The delivery story nobody shows the panel.
The double life of a public artworkA public artwork is on duty around the clock. Designing the day work and the night work as two registers of one idea, not a sculpture with a floodlight.
What does public art actually cost?An honest anatomy of a public art budget: where the number comes from, where the money goes, what it has bought, and why the cheapest artwork is commissioned early.
Designing for memory: public art for an aged care communityAt Queenslea, the artwork wraps an aged care building in the patterns its residents grew up with. On familiarity as a design material.
What integrated public art actually meansIntegrated public art is not a sculpture placed near a building. It is artwork built as part of the architecture, priced and delivered like a trade package.
The wind designed this artworkAnemoi in Fremantle was shaped by a simulated sea breeze and is lit each night by the real one. How the Fremantle Doctor became an artist.- Percent for Art in WA, explainedWhat WA's percent for art requirements actually ask of your project, and how to turn a planning condition into an artwork worth having.
When should you bring a public artist into your project?The single biggest factor in what a public art budget buys is timing. Here is what changes at each project stage, from masterplan to variation.
Building something
permanent?
daniel@studiodg.com.auStudio
StudioDG
Perth, Western Australia
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