Travelers
This installation is grounded in Huntsville's history while celebrating the city's trajectory into the future, informed by engagement with community foundation stakeholders, the arts commission and Huntsville city administration officials.
Traveler's Plaza at Big Spring Park is grounded in Huntsville's history while celebrating the city's trajectory into the future. The word "traveler" has several associations. The floors of Huntsville's historic textile mills are embedded with thousands of 'ring travelers' that once twisted raw fiber into finished thread. In addition, Huntsville's identity is entwined with the history and the future of space travel.
Today, as a global STEM center, Huntsville leads the world as we travel into a tech-driven future. This installation creates a gateway experience along the southern edge of Big Spring Park, Huntsville's downtown signature park, historic 'big spring' and cultural center - transforming an existing walk and plaza space into a welcoming place and invitation to wander into the park.
The installation creates two smaller gathering spaces in a larger open public space. It also serves as a framing element from the park's interior, drawing visitors to explore a growing mixed-use urban area along the edge of the park and creating connections both to and from the park. The arch forms, each uniquely shaped, are arranged in an elliptical progression conveying both circumference and center as a metaphorical reference to the dome of the celestial sky and a historical belief of the membrane where the stars and the sun were thought to be located, delineating a boundary between the earthly and the heavenly.
In the daytime, the installations cast dramatic shadows that shift with the sun and recall the Earth's trajectory through the heavens. At dusk, the spheres glow as beacons illuminated by in-grade LED fixtures, drawing you in to explore. The installation creates intimate gathering spaces within the Plaza while maintaining far-reaching views of Big Spring Park and beyond.
The cascading, uniquely shaped arch forms are arranged to create both a threshold space and a gathering space with movement suggested through light and form. Traveler's Plaza encompasses a plaza area of approximately 60 feet by 90 feet and is constructed from an assembly of 30 uniquely shaped and positioned elements.
The elements form a dynamic sculptural experience for visitors and serve as a threshold to Big Spring Park. LED lighting of the arch elements and the travelers' benches creates inviting public spaces with strong visual connections to the park and urban context beyond.