Opening reception is on Friday, November 13, 2015 from 5:00pm to 6:00pm, with introductory remarks by the curators at 5:15pm. 

The University of Texas at Austin is pleased to present the exhibition documenting Field Constructs Design Competition (FCDC). In November of 2014, FCDC invited emerging designers, architects, landscape architects, and artists to participate in an international juried competition to design, fabricate, and install a site-specific intervention at the Circle Acres Nature Preserve in Austin’s Montopolis neighborhood. FCDC attracted submissions from four continents, nine countries, 14 states, and 35 cities. 

Many captured the program’s mission of marrying experimentation with design innovation while uniquely addressing the history and ecology of the competition site — a former quarry and remediated brownfield.

Represented in the exhibition is a collection of the four winning projects, 14 jury-selected finalists, and 12 curators’ choices. The exhibition, designed by UTSOA Associate Professor Igor Siddiqui, presents images from the selected projects as an immersive field organized within the scaled footprint of the Circle Acres site. Presented are also details about the winning proposals and expanded information about the Montopolis site. 

Parallel to the exhibition in Mebane Gallery, the four winning projects will be installed for public viewing at the site from November 14 to 22. The winning projects — a buoyant chain of balloons wired with sensors floating above the landscape; a camouflaged canopy laser-cut from polished steel; a brightly-colored egg overgrown with grass; and a patterned root system fabricated on a digital lathe — represent a diverse group of architects, landscape architects, and designers, focusing on digital fabrication, material innovation, and interactive design. Themes of camouflage; waste cycles in a landfill; dynamic, repetitive, growth in nature; and interactivity unite the four projects — which will all generate, apply, and test innovative thinking with regard to site specificity, environmental impact, and the use of new technological advancements in design. 

The 2015 FCDC jury included: Virginia San Fratello of Rael San Fratello in Oakland, Calif.; Benjamin Ball of Ball-Nogues Studio in Los Angeles; Ingrid Spencer, executive director of AIA Austin; Jason Sowell, associate professor and program director of landscape architecture at The University of Texas at Austin School of Architecture; and Seattle-based artist John Grade. 

Field Constructs Design Competition is co-founded and co-directed by Rachel Adams, Catherine Gavin, and Igor Siddiqui. Graphic design and identity are by Pentagram. Circle Acres Nature Preserve is owned and operated by Ecology Action of Texas. 

For more information, please visit www.fieldconstructs.org.