A commission by the Los Angeles Fire Department to create two sculptures to grace their Air Operations facility at Van Nuys Airport. The facility houses all the department’s helicopters and the local Van Nuys Airport crash response team. The LAFD helicopters are responsible for fire fighting in the wilderness urban interface as well as air ambulance, search and rescue and high-rise fire fighting.
The entrance sculpture is a steel tower evocative of fluid water being used at extreme pressures. A repeated steel shape is randomly installed and gradually enlarged up a series of steel rings to create a 32 feet tall structure that is diffused by light from the sun during the day and solar power at night.
Inside the lobby a 20 feet tall horn suspended from the ceiling projects a gradually increasing LAFD helicopter noise down onto an observer in an attempt to sensitize the listener to a common urban noise, typically ignored, and re-frame it as if it were coming to their own aid.