Client: Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture

Overview

Fausto Fernandez tapped his love of layered colors and mechanical shapes to design a floor inspired by the outline of an airplane’s horizontal stabilizer, known as a tailplane. Fernandez used ten colors to create the platform’s rhythmic geometric patterns and sweeping bands. He heightened the floor’s reflective qualities by adding aggregates of recycled, crushed glass and mirror.

Goals

Four artist-designed terrazzo floors at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport’s PHX Sky Train have been named “2013 Job of the Year” by the National Terrazzo and Mosaic Association (NTMA award link). The award was given to Advance Terrazzo, the Phoenix firm that produced the floors.

Process

The Sky Train’s terrazzo floors were commissioned through the Phoenix Office of Arts and Culture Public Art Program with Aviation percent-for-art funds. The city’s Public Art Program and Aviation Department partnered over the past six years to integrate the terrazzo into the Sky Train stations.