above: millenial project for the Art Gallery of Nova Scotia, detail. right: tower for the Museum of Industry, Stellarton, NS.
The second project is a tower for the Museum of Industry in Stellerton, Nova Scotia. Nearly 30 metres tall, it is intended as a wayfinder and viewing platform along the Trans-Canada in one of the oldest industrial areas of the country. Manufactured of steel, steel cable, net and laminated wood, it is a tribute to industrial artisanry in the province. The forms come from time-motion studies of workers, best known in the early twentieth century photographs of Frank and Lillian Gilbreth. The Gilbreths made wire models of the traces left from bodies in motion. We used similar models to generate the five major vertical supports, and then extended cables to stabilize these supports, giving an impression of motion when seen from a passing car, or when on the stairs. The spider-like web made by the hundreds of cables create tensile surfaces hovering in space. Additional netting stretched between the steel cables are woven from steel and fiberoptic cable to make a luminous veil visible at night. These structures weave a story about Arachne and about women sewing their desire for freedom in space.
Sarah Bonnemaison and Christine Macy teach architecture at Dalhousie and practice under the name Filum in Halifax, NS.
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O n S ite review
S ewing
I ssue 8 2002
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