SHAPESHIFT OAKLAND @ MOXY

When I began working on this project, we brought up a question: What is the shape of Oakland? While the iconic outlines of countries and states are often instantly recognizable, a city’s geographical form often remains obscure to its own residents and visitors. Shapeshift Oakland brings this hidden shape to life by weaving a partial border outline of Oakland into a dynamic background pattern inspired by the historic theater marquees of the neighborhood. Traced as a single continuous line, Shapeshift Oakland conceptually bridges the tangible world and the imaginative realm of pictorial representation. At deck level, a red dot points directly to the street below, while a map marker above highlights the precise location of the hotel within Oakland. The result is an entrancing visual labyrinth and an image of a city that is always changing.

The wall art was installed using 20’-8” wide pre-made sections, from bottom to top, with special care taken to ensure each section was perfectly aligned throughout the installation. These were fabricated in 15 sections for shipping, weighing 800 pounds each, with 37 sheets of 4’-by-8’of painted aluminum. The total weight of aluminum is 12,000 pounds. Fabricated out of ¼-inch thick aluminum, Shapeshift Oakland is attached to horizontal stringers and vertical C-channels to stand off 9” from the face of the building.

During the fabrication phase, laser-cut pieces were individually laid out by hand onto a full-scale paper template for alignment, prior to the clamping and welding. This 6-story drawing was plotted directly from the digital drawings produced by Faulders Studio.

Materials: painted 1/4" plate aluminum, 9" offset from wall surface