Flows Two Ways

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Situated at 57 West, located at West 57^th Street between 11^th and 12^th Avenues is a monumental outdoor sculpture known by the name of Flows Two Ways. Commissioned by the Durst Organization and the brainchild of Stephen Glassman Studios (LA), AI Signcrafters was responsible for the installation of the art piece.

Scaling eight stories at sixty-by-sixty feet, the work denotes the main entrance to VIA 57 WEST, the torqued tetrahedral residential and mixed-use “courtscraper” that marks Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG)’s first project in the Americas.

To install the technologically complex Flows Two Ways sculpture, AI Signcrafters worked with engineering, architecture, and design teams to fabricate and install a layered construction and anchoring system and with Milgo Bufkin on fabrication of the panelized façade.

Design considerations were made for optimal transportation, handling, and installation. The layered eight-story, 32,000-pound jig-saw puzzle is composed of a stainless-steel mounting matrix embedded into the existing HELENA wall, 35 interlocking aluminum panels, nearly 400 sixty-foot pipe clusters rolled and flowing in three axes, and faceted metal “boulders.”

A sophisticated sliding plate system that largely floats the 16-ton piece of the building accommodates thermal expansion and forces generated by wind, rain, snow, and ice loads. 

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