El paisaje del Aeropuerto Luis Muñoz Marín

Se plantea una estrategia que combine elementos de paisajismo y "Land-Art" aprovechando la condición de campo visual y "fachada aérea" desde los autos y aviones que se mueven a través y sobre él. Este lugar permite construir, no solo comentar o representar, el paisaje como sitio, experiencia y artefacto visual.

Explanatory note:

Originally proposed for a site at the entrance of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, this monumental “land art” project had to be adapted for relocation at a site at the intersection of PR-53 and PR-52, on the Guayama exit of the Luis A. Ferré Highway. Approximately one year after our endorsement request, the project was rejected by the Port Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration. This action required a transformation of the project and a new proposal, leading to improvements in resolution, scale and location.

Jardín alado: (jardín en tránsito)
Garden with Wings (Commuting Garden)

The intention of this project is to prompt an intense, refreshing and mysterious experience for people driving through the sector. It has several components. One is a luminous sculpture shaped as an airplane fin visible from afar. The fin shall have a luminous, green-colored stripe on the top that changes thermostatically and shall be visible in the daytime and at night. The second component consists of  bouganvilaeas, forming the silhouette of an insect, reverberating in a beautiful embroidery of vegetation spotted with bright flowers. The stalks of the garden's palm trees, airplane-shaped, are the third secret ingredient, caressing the southern landscape.

The effect from the road is dynamic. Colors and shapes will change gradually when viewed from the freeway, generating a variety of aesthetic experiences. The aerial view will form a huge drawing, blending the airplane's silhouette outlined by the rows of palms and the winged insect embroidered by the bouganvilaeas.

Garden with Wings: (Commuting Garden) emphasizes the crossing over the natural threshold between the north and the south of the island. The airplane and the insect point respectively in both directions. The species that make up each one of these figures underline the botanical characteristics of the signaled zones. The space on which both figures overlap is the vortex from which this north-south  landscaped threshold is projected like the axis of a huge compass.

Explanatory note: Inicial Aphorism

(S)J(U)ardín de tránsitos y rocíos luciérnagos, (San Juan: Your Garden of Metamorphoses and Dewy Fireflies) consists of a massive tree-planting strategy in the areas surrounding the entrance to the Luis Muñoz Marín Airport in San Juan. Viewed from the sky, the work will outline the silhouette of an airplane. The importance of the Airport site will launch the work to international air space, but the work also embraces the local through a symbiosis of  natural flora with social and cultural signs. The trees and their silhouettes may be perceived as a welcome and farewell sign by departing and arriving travelers, a poetic experience accessible from the air and the land.

This project underscores the importance of LMM airport as an international aerial gateway in the region, a space charged with meanings and referents in our cultural imaginary. In addition to aesthetic vocabularies that approach Land Art, the planting strategy provides an opportunity to provoke an environmental impact.  

 San Juan: Your Garden of Metamorphoses and Dewy Fireflies

1) A massive planting of native species along a rectilinear grid. This lay-out covers all empty green areas, accessible along the project, reforesting the airport's territory with a solid botanical texture. At the meeting point between this first design layer and the secondary one, the grid becomes flexible and sensuously curvilinear. 

2) A tree topiary with the silhouette of a large floating airplane. This component consists of a lush mix of native species whose tops blend in a unique manner, while preserving their individual characteristics, the shape and color of each species and each one's specific flowering period. To appreciate this component there radically different are options, depending from the spectator's physical proximity. From the ground, the figure will be traversed by all roads and elevated bridges accessing the airport, in paths that anticipate or recall the intimate and cool spaces of the island's interior with their tree-lined roads. The airplane silhouette outline, shaped by the tree topiary, will be perceived only from the air, from arriving or departing airplanes.