Designers to Create CommonLink

CONCEPTUAL DESIGN by O’Connell/Hancock

“Line and Sky”

CommonLink – Shreveport’s first Transportation and Information Substation

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Joe O’Connell and Blessing Hancock, project designers from Tucson, Arizona, share that “Line and Sky is a stage for creative expression in the Shreveport Common. This highly interactive sculpture supports physical exploration, fitness and play at this contemporary transportation station. We were inspired by CommonLink’s mission to tie together arts and transportation in an original way. Line and Sky asks the Shreveport community to use their imagination. What if you could construct your whole world out of a continuous line?  What would this ‘tied together’ world look like? What would life feel like if art and functionality connected seamlessly along a single axis? We are inviting the community of Shreveport to join us in this creative challenge. As a monument to the neighborhood this piece will represent the life and breath of Shreveport residents.

Line and Sky is a three-dimensional ‘sketch’ that moves across the site at a human scale. Nearly 2000 feet of two-inch pipe arranged in a single twisting line makes up a complex visual drawing. Visitors wind their way through the drawing and encounter ever changing perspectives and opportunities for interaction. The energetic line is carefully framed by a ‘floating’ mass of light and color. This simple horizontal canopy offers shelter and a restful counterpoint to the dynamic linear element. The three-foot-thick steel truss canopy gently curves over the site, wrapping at the ends and breaking into cubes along the groundplane. These cubes arranged on the ground plane suggest a three dimensional map of transit routes and city blocks through which the line moves.

Line and Sky is a striking landscape of contour and mass. Emphasis is placed on physical movement as a form of transportation. Our concept offers a flexible and open-ended environment that spurs creative interpretation and usage. The physical and social dynamic of residents using the shelter will clearly be reflected in Line and Sky. Our aim is to join with the community to create friendly connections and group interaction through the sculpture. This is a place to show off, work together, swing, dance, climb, balance, jump, hang, reach, try and learn by doing. These multiple interpretations and uses invite community expression, sharing and trust. We’ve created a colorful porch open to the community. In fact we have included a porch swing!

Line and Sky is eminently practical. It is made entirely from the same humble material used to make railings and bike racks, but it contorts this in far more creative ways. The sculpture offers ample opportunities for the standard amenities:  places to sit and lean, shade from the sun, holders for signs (two-inch pipe bent in the shape of a paperclip). But we do not intend to tell people what parts of the sculpture should be used for what. Rather than present circumscribed functions we are offering a rich landscape filled with amenities and leave it up to visitors to discover creative ways to use the sculpture. Line and Sky offers a simple and extendable vocabulary. It can serve as inspiration for other transit stops in the system. In other words it would be possible to use the same elements we use in CommonLink yet create something different.”

Major Elements:
Canopy: 225’ x 27’ x 15’ steel truss structure clad in 8mm twin wall polycarbonate and 3/4’ acrylic panels. Lit with outdoor florecent lighting.  Color optional.
Line Drawing: 2000 feet of 2” and 6”schedule 40 steel pipe painted red.
Electronic Hub/Interactive: Multiple touchscreen stations provide real time updated transit map data and internet access. Additional touch sensitive interactive components will control the canopy lighting.