FF – Distance Edition: FUTUREFORMS

The League’s FF – Distance Edition, an online version of the long-running First Friday series, continues on Thursday evenings. This season’s events feature design practices that are redefining the contemporary public landscape by responding to social and environmental concerns and exploring the intersections of architecture, technology, and ecology.

FUTUREFORMS is a San Francisco-based art and design studio founded and led by Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno. The studio has most recently focused on artwork that integrates into existing frameworks such as landscapes, infrastructural pathways, and building facades through the use of geometry, light, and shadow. FUTUREFORMS describes its work as “activating the urban realm by creating places for public exchange, celebration, or reflection.”

The firm presented on its practice and projects, including:

• Lightweave, a permanent public artwork in Washington, DC, that translates ambient sounds from the city into dynamic auroras of patterned LED light.
• Radiance, a sculptural shade canopy that seeks to foster pedestrian interactions and establishes a dynamic focal point for Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Patten Parkway.
• Weatherscape, a sculptural canopy in El Paso, Texas, that channels dynamic weather conditions, triggering optical, material, and sound effects.

The program was moderated by Jesse Reiser, a professor of architecture at Princeton University and a founding principal of Reiser + Umemoto, RUR Architecture DPC. He recently became an honorary fellow of the University of Tokyo School of Engineering.