4th Street & Wells Underpass, Reno, NV

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Tracing the history of the project site, I was interested to discover that it had once been home to Reno Mill and Lumber (later the Verdi Lumber Company then the Eveleth Lumber Company), a planing mill and sash factory with yards that accommodated several thousand acres of pine cut from the nearby Tahoe basin. I began to consider not only the sheer volume of timber that had passed through the site but also the mechanical process of changing these beautiful organic forms into geometrically shaped and regularly dimensioned materials that could readily be used for building and construction. At the same time, the activity of “making” and the culture of “makers” is still very much present in the area today, inspiring me to explore how such carefully constructed materials could be reverse engineered to recreate these organic forms. Playing off of the existing overpass and the role transportation has played in 4th Street’s history, I imagined branch-like forms emanating from the bridge as if growing out from its very structure. Flourishing independently but still integral to the columns, they will appear as fantastical visions – as if history has emerged from the past - reimagined and reinterpreted through the many different lenses of time.

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