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Public Art

In conjunction with the planning and design of America's Cup Harbor Parking Facility, the Port of San Diego's Public Art Office is managing the development of site-specific artwork to be integrated into the in the parking facility design by artist Suikang Zhao.

Zhao was selected through a competitive process and awarded the contract to design, fabricate and install public artwork for the project. Since then the artist has joined the design team and conducted research and participated in multiple public meetings.

Zhao believes working collaboratively with the architect is essential to integrating artwork into the parking facility design. His design represents a unique sculptural approach to enhancing the dynamic gesture of the parking facility while also serving to partially screen the view of the parking. To conceive this approach, he looked at the movement of sails and ocean waves for ideas.

In looking at the parking facility design, Zhao integrates the art and architecture elements. He intends to use five abstract forms that relate to sails to suggest the image of a moving, water wave. The sculpture elements visually break the rectangular geometry of the parking facility and create a movement of a wave form. The design also utilizes the existing curvature of the architectural elements to thread, connect, and push toward a dynamic movement. With the scale of the sculptural elements and the movement they create, the intent is that viewers will see the cars in the parking facility as tiny colorful floating elements on water.

A public open house was held on April 7, 2011, at which Zhao presented his concept proposal to incorporate public artwork into the design of the parking facility and took comments and suggestions regarding the concept. Zhao is now further developing his design.

The Public Art Committee reviewed Zhao’s further developed artwork design at their meeting on October 20, 2011, and recommended to staff approval of Zhao’s artwork design. 

Zhao is now in the construction documents phase of the project.