With many buildings slowed down or outright canceled by the economic downturn, there are a lot of vacant lots. Rather than leave these as scars in an urban context, some people have been proposing that they be used for interim art installations. One of these is a Sebastapol artist Ned Kahn who wants to turn an empty construction site at 535 Mission St. in San Francisco (one of the hardest hit markets for construction and development), now covered by gravel, into what he calls "Memory of Water" -- a lake bed of sorts, created by shimmering metal discs.
Kahn glimpsed the 535 Mission parcel, "the white field reminded me of Mono Lake ... what a cool opportunity to squander the better part of a city block on something useless but glimmering, for reasons of beauty and aesthetics."
This impulse translated into a scheme that would take the concave concrete seal on the excavated site and use it as the frame for what Kahn likens to "a trampoline for the wind, a soft and compliant surface."
Hooks along the perimeter of the cap would support a taut net of thin steel cables; that delicate grid in turn would brace a field of grainy metal discs that move independent of one another, the shimmer from a passing breeze likely to ripple across the rectangular lot.
The concept is distilled yet alive, one that if constructed would offer an ethereal counterpoint to the financial district swirl. And not just for pedestrians: "It'd be very entertaining for all the people in the buildings that look down" on the site, Kahn said. "There are a lot of eyes up there."
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