Bus Fountain
Bus Fountain, Salesforce Transit Center, San Francisco, CA
Located along the entire 4-block length of the park on the rooftop of the new Salesforce Transit Center, the Bus Fountain is a 1000-foot long water sculpture that is animated by the passage of buses through the building. Motion sensors embedded in the ceiling of the space where the buses drive activate nozzles in the rooftop fountain above. The sensors are spaced every 3-feet, as are the nozzles, and each sensor activates the nozzle directly above it in the fountain. The result is that the real-time movement of the buses is rendered in water. Unlike standard computer-controlled fountains, this artwork has a distributed intelligence. There is no program. The buses are the choreographers of the artwork. The project was a collaboration with Pelli/Clark/Pelli Architects, Peter Walker and Partners Landscape Architects and Dan Netz, the fountain engineer. Completed in 2018.