While on residency at Brown University in early 2011, I discovered an article in the November 1969 edition of Progressive Architecture, which presents the results of some research into space-station design. The project was a collaboration between the astronautical engineers at Grumman Aerospace and architects Warner, Burns, Toan & Lunde, who were designing Brown University's Sciences Library (SciLi) around the same time.

The walls in the SciLi are typical of a Brutalist structure - raw concrete bearing the traces of the wooden formwork that was used to cast it. In this work, the texture of the wall surface in the SciLi was transferred to a sheet of mirror mylar in the manner of a 'brass rubbing'.


Commissioned by The John Nicholas Brown Center for Public Humanities and Cultural Heritage, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Produced while in residence at the Perry and Marty Granoff Centre for the Arts, Brown University. The residency was supported by Culture Ireland as part of Imagine Ireland, a Year of Irish Arts in America 2011. Curated by Ian Russell.