Beaux Arts Ball

2022
Brooklyn, New York
Installation (Completed)
1,000 SF

For this installation we collected discarded elements from across the Navy Yard—16 panels used in a Times Square installation, and by-products of fabrication processes from construction dust to glass beads—and used ice to hold them together in new assemblies.

Architecture always comes down to the detail: how two materials join, how they’re bound, how they’re secured. We work hard to study and draw connections, to ensure those moments will hold. A weak detail is a little scary. In this installation, the ice is a joint, a detail holding the large panels in a configuration that is both spatial (the panels act like walls, canopies, and furniture) and dynamic (they seem to be frozen mid-motion). When the ice melts, the panels will fall and the aggregates cast inside will be left as a material residue. The ghostly connections remind us that the detail is always a tenuous conceit.

Fabrication: Ice Miracles (John Melton)
Lighting Design: Joel Fitzpatrick Studio
Photography: Michael Vahrenwald/Esto
Comissioned by: The Architectural League of New York

Selected Press

On Ice: The Editors Review an Installation by New Affiliates, Party Planner, vol.2, Afterparty 2023.