n ARCHITECTURE
'SUBTILE'
WEST SACRAMENTO / LANDSCAPE ARCHITECT: QUADRIGA
In May 2015, West Sacramento released a heavily pub-
licized request for proposal for a public art installation
at the city’s River Walk Park. The city was looking to
animate the landscape in a way that would ref lect the
historical, cultural and geographic character of the site
through art and landscape. After receiving more than
100 proposals from artists around the world, the panel-
ists selected "Subtile," a submission from internationally
renowned Czech-Argentinian artist Federico Diaz. A very
kinetic piece, "Subtile" is meant to suggest a grove of trees
whose more than 17,000 ref lective stainless-steel disks are
in constant motion with the breeze and echo the chang-
ing colors and visual patterns of the clouds, river and
surrounding cottonwoods. The artist used a mathemati-
cal algorithm to determine the shape and silhouette of the
sculpture’s form.
Landscape architecture firm Quadriga finalized the
site selection and designed the environment surrounding
the sculpture. The firm assembled a team of engineers to
help with the lighting, footing solutions and permitting,
and recommended siting the art piece along the riverfront
near a grove of cottonwood trees between The Barn and
the Tower Bridge. “The first thing we found was that this
piece ref lected the world around it — the vegetation, the
skyline, the river — and we wanted to make sure the site
would take advantage of views of the mature cottonwood
trees, and ref lect both its urban and riparian setting,” says
Quadriga principal John Suesens.
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comstocksmag.com | May 2019
Because the sculpture is on a protected levee, permits
were required from the Central Valley Flood Control Board,
the City of West Sacramento, the U.S. Army Corps of Engi-
neers and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
To gain the necessary approvals, the landscape architects
provided detailed descriptions of the design, light patterns
and improvements and how those might affect potential
wildlife species, which added another layer of complex-
ity to the design solutions. Two spotlights that illuminate