Public creativity crucial for cities, argues Urban Art Projects founder after Ai Weiwei collaboration in New York

– Dan Tobin, founder, Urban Art Projects
One of the design team responsible for realising Ai Weiwei’s huge ‘security fence’
installations across New York has told CLADglobal the popularity of the project demonstrates why cities and developers would be “mad” not to commission creativity.
Dan Tobin, the founder of international creative design and delivery studio Urban Art Projects (UAP), said that boundary-pushing art “sparks conversations, activates communities, creates memories, celebrates different cultures, drives tourism and enables micro and macro economies”.
UAP collaborated with the Chinese artist on Good Fences Make Good Neighbors in New York – which opened in October 2017 and runs until February next year.
Partly backed by a successful crowdfunding campaign, the citywide public art exhibition is inspired by the international migration crisis and includes large-scale sculptures that depict the security fence as a social and artistic symbol.
Over 300 site-specific, freestanding works have been installed, including highly visible ones at the Washington Square Arch in Greenwich Village, the Unisphere at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens, and at the Doris C. Freedman Plaza at Central Park.
The latter places an abstract, golden cage in a space where it is juxtaposed against one of the most visited urban public parks in the US.
UAP worked with multidisciplinary studio AECOM Tishman, architecture firm FXFOWLE, engineer Thornton Tomasetti and street furniture company JCDecaux to bring Ai’s larger visions to life.
“Delivering such a project in a compressed timeframe and on budget for one of the world’s most influential artists was a daunting task,” said Tobin. “Ai Weiwei and the Public Art Fund, who backed the project, had very high expectations and we also had to take into account the high-profile nature of the sites.
“There were certainly challenges. With teams scattered across three continents – the artist and his team based in Berlin, UAP’s design and project management team in New York and our fabrication team in Shanghai – late night and early morning video conferences were often a daily occurrence.”
He added that while “serious engineering” was required to create the structures and secure installation approvals from the city authorities, the result was worth the effort.
“Ai Weiwei was extremely pleased by how true to his creative intent the built forms are, which is immensely satisfying for us,” he said. “But being on-site post-installation and watching and listening to people as they talked about and explored the works has been the definite highlight for me.”
Despite receiving criticism from some local groups, including the Washington Square Association, for politicising pre-existing architecture and art, Ai’s installations have received critical acclaim and been a hit with the public.
Tobin told CLADglobal he would like to see more encouragement of public art to replicate the success of Good Fences Make Good Neighbors.
“Whether it’s London’s Fourth Plinth, Christo’s Floating Piers on Lake Iseo in Italy, or indeed Ai Weiwei’s work, public commissions do it all,” he said.
UAP are currently collaborating with a number of other artists in the US, including Erwin Redl, who has just created a network of suspended lighted orbs in Madison Square Park, and French duo Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec, who are installing a series of sculptural shade structures in the streets of Miami.
Ai Weiwei New York public art design UAP Dan Tobin Good Fences Make Good Neighbors





Ai Weiwei’s Zodiac-inspired animal sculptures to show at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Ai Weiwei's magical and mythological bamboo kites go on display in Paris department store
Ai Weiwei unveils art exhibition at Alcatraz prison
London's Serpentine Gallery opens ESPA-sponsored Pavilion


OMA complete latest expansion for Milan's Fondazione Prada

Crystal Palace edges closer to stadium revamp after council votes to approve design plan

Design unveiled for cinema centre in Seoul's movie district

Six Senses Fiji opens with nature-focused Spa Village

Spurs: new images and plastic-reducing measures unveiled for future stadium

One&Only to debut Urban Resorts in Dubai with ‘spa that never sleeps’

Sweden’s boutique hotel The Lamp to add design-focused spa

Carlo Ratti explores the effects of climate change at Milan Pavilion

Rossana Hu: Separation of interior design and architecture is a mistake

Reiulf Ramstad reveals design for French landscape hotel and spa with 'Nordic temperament'

Salone del Mobile and Design Week kick off in Milan with 300,000 visitors expected

Green light for HawkinsBrown's mixed-use masterplan for historic mill

New renderings for Moomin Park as opening date set for Japanese nature attraction

ACE Hotels announce Kengo Kuma will design its first property in Japan

Maria Sharapova and Dan Meis join forces to design boutique sport and fitness facilities

U2’s iconic Claw stage to become permanent fixture at Loveland Living Planet Aquarium

FC Barcelona make breakthrough in bid to build new stadium and 'Barça' district

CannonDesign's Baltimore basketball arena 'embraces movement' through design

China clamping down on unsustainable theme park boom

Winning design revealed for Montreal contemporary art museum expansion

MVRDV win competition for landmark public installation in Den Helder with 'infinite loop' design

FC Nantes reveals proposed design for striking new stadium

Bjarke Ingels Group reveal zigzagging hotel with ski roof for Audemars Piguet visitor attraction

W Hotels opens first Central American property with colourful W Panama

Swansea council strikes deal for 'state-of-the-art' waterfront arena with vast digital façade

FXCollaborative selected to transform landmark New York church into vibrant home of Children's Museum of Manhattan

Want to recreate an airport in your nightclub? Entire contents of Heathrow's Terminal 1 to go under the hammer

Heritage masterplan for Edinburgh sets out sustainable tourism model for World Heritage Site

The show must go on: BRC masterminds new PT Barnum Museum in Connecticut
