A luxury high-rise apartment melds aspects of lifestyle, image and opulence to attract its clientele, and The Vermont in Los Angeles, Calif., sought that special touch that would set it apart. Cliff Garten of Cliff Garten Studio in Venice, Calif., was commissioned to create an architecturally integrated sculpture with a dual purpose: as a façade for The Vermont’s parking garage and an art installation. A wire fabric curtain serves as backdrop for a 20-foot-tall, suspended three-dimensional sculpture of lotus petals extended outward on a steel armature. “The sculpture is bathed in an intense white light, while the screen and its corresponding line drawing move through a light show of rich changing colors,” says Garten.
Entitled “Los Angeles Opens its Heart of Compassion,” the Garten installation uses a 75-by-45-foot curtain of undulating Fabricoil™ as the façade/backdrop. Fabricoil looks and performs like traditional woven metal mesh, but manufacturer Cascade Architectural, Tualatin, Ore., touts its lower installed cost. The interlocked wire strands are shaped into a coil form, giving it spring-like characteristics that allow for greater tension and compression, lighter weight and reduced structural requirements to affix it to external walls.
The Garten Studio chose 5/16-inch, 14-gauge aluminum Fabricoil with a clear anodized finish for the “Heart of Compassion” installation. The coiled wire fabric is manufactured in a variety of weaves, metals, gauges and finishes suitable for interior and exterior applications. The Fabricoil backdrop provides shine and texture, and its curves react beautifully to the swells of changing LED light. Coiled wire fabric used as window treatments or scrims also save energy and increase thermal comfort.