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In February a local metal sculptor, Sam Osroff of Salmon Studios, invited me to collaborate with him on two projects.  The first is a mural for the new bicycle bridge that spans lower Main Street facing downtown, the second project is designing “gateway” signs to be placed at the major roadway entrances into Northampton.

Both projects are being funded through private donations, and have enough funds pledged to move forward and go public.   The bike bridge mural reflects downtown Northampton celebrating the return of passenger trains to town meshing with a city block perspective.  The materials are Corten steel, cnc cut aluminum, polished stainless, and copper sheet.  Sam plans to fabricate the locomotive and balloon with artistic license.  We collaborated for several months on this design and are excited to see it realized.

The Gateway signs use the same language as the bridge mural.  In this case we added an agricultural theme with a barn and tractor.  Combined with the train station or the downtown theme it will be customized to each of the seven locations throughout Northampton.  It too will be fabricated from Corten steel, anodized black aluminum, copper sheet and cnc aluminum.

The second of two sinks designed and built for the RKM house in Amherst, MA.  This sink was cast in bright orange to match the children’s bathroom.  The fabrication of sink 2 was much smoother due to the lessons learned in forming and casting an identical sink 1.  The orange color was achieved while the concrete was mixing.  After putting all the liquid yellow dye the shop had into the mix, liquid red dye was added to taste.  Realizing the color was muddy and drab, I overloaded the prescribed red until it seemed to punch.  This might be due to the use of Flows additive which is used to reduce the water content in the formula, which seemed to brown the color.

When deforming the top of the form the orange was striking!  The next day the plexi form was removed.  It took under 15 minutes to free the sink, unfortunately the form cracked and was not reusable.  My plexi welding skills are improving but not perfected yet.

The sink was then sanded and due to time constraints, plumbers and building inspector scheduling, delivered to the site unsealed!  Risky but a fact in the architecture world.

The sink is at home now, and the orange color balances with the tiles and timber columns of the bathroom.  Sealing with 101 and Hydrogaurd this week.