Sunset Dream Catcher – Echelman Sculpture

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

This large-scale, floating net sculpture was developed for the Sunset La Cienega project in West Hollywood, California. The aerial sculpture was designed in collaboration with artist Janet Echelman and spans the two towers of the development. The artwork’s inspiration stems from dreams and the idea of dreaming hotel guests asleep in the two buildings that cradle and support the sculpture. 

Judge's comment:

This large-scale, floating net sculpture was developed in collaboration with artist Janet Echelman. It is 65ft tall, spans 100ft between buildings and comprises three primary horizontal nets with secondary vertical nets.

Tension structures such as this between buildings are harder to achieve than they look but Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, providing both architecture and structural engineering, have delivered an elegant outcome. 

One of the artist’s aspirations was to achieve a seamless transition between the sculpture and the buildings at each connection point. To this end, the design team created custom designed sleeve embeds for the building concrete flat slab for each attachment point. A far better solution than bulky face fixed connection points.