Reed Wall
The top three floors of a High Rise condominium in downtown Dallas, had not been built out for decades since the structure had been completed. The new owner secured the raw properties and sought ideas that conceptually and physically unite the three floors. The Artists response was to install a contiguous wall work 38 foot high by 18 foot wide with a detached staircase "floating" in the foreground.
Multiple challenges had to be met in order to build such an installation. For one, weight was an issue. An analysis of the structure concluded that, as most, the stone on the wall could be no more than three inches thick. Since the stone was "harvested" from the natural cleft surfaces of raw limestone, achieving a constant texture with such low profile was a high order. The answer was in limestone quarried in Iowa whose natural surfaces were relatively flat.
Another challenge was that the only elevator that reached the upper floors was small, and could not handle typical freight loads. The modules or tiles making up the wall piece were limited to 40 by 20 inches.
The stone was quarried in Iowa, the glass was fabricated in Indiana then laminated and mirrored in Arizona, and the shaping of the stone and final assembly took place in New Mexico.