Michigan State University Bio Engineering Facility

As an artist working in the realm of public art, I used Vanceva Color Interlayers to create a permanent large-scale art installation for Michigan State University’s new Bio Engineering Facility. Inspired by the color patterns in DNA mapping, this art glass installation spans both sides of the building’s central grand staircase, complementing the sleek double helix-inspired design (architect: Integrated Design Solutions, Troy, MI).

This project involved nearly 200 tempered and laminated glass panels suspended on tensioned cables that extend over four stories high from the roof structure to first floor. Fabricated by GlasPro (Santa Fe Springs, CA), each of the glass panels is 21” x 30” x ½” with holes drilled to accept custom fabricated hardware. Starting with the basic colors offered by Vanceva, I combined up to four layers to create a palette of 47 colors. The geometric suspension of the panels in the space references the way DNA data is often expressed using grids of color. In determining how the panels connect, I found inspiration in Eileen Gray’s “Brick Screen,” an iconic example of early modernist design from 1922, in which several horizontal rows of lacquered wooden panels hinge around thin vertical metal rods. Translating aspects of this design to a large-scale art glass installation affords the work a sense of timeless elegance, a seamless blending of the classic with the contemporary.