Figure 1: Daytime Render

Lantern Gate is an illuminated pedestrian passage at Natomas Fire Station 43 formed of stone-like roots that have overtaken a wooden archway. The original archway appears as if it has long ago decomposed, leaving a lattice of roots to define its shape. As the roots wrap and twist about the vanished form, they become fire hoses, whose lifted nozzles insinuate the buds of trees. At night blue light will emanate from the interior of the sculpture, creating a beacon that echoes Firehouse lanterns from an earlier time, and the water contained within the hoses.

Freestanding gates are traditionally used in landscape settings as a symbolic means to transform one’s consciousness. Lantern Gate is such a transformational threshold. The sculpture will encourage distractions from everyday life, allowing a return to a state of conscious strength and calm. It conveys to the visitor they have arrived at a unique place, where firefighters work in a state of watchful readiness.

As a compelling visual hybrid of the natural and manmade, (the rooted and the reaching) it offers daily an evocative transition between the firefighter’s state of preparedness while in the station, and the action state achieved when responding to an emergency in the community.

Figure 2: Measurement & Sketch

Figure 3: Evolution of Form

Lantern Gate is an illuminated pedestrian passage at Natomas Fire Station 43 formed of stone-like roots that have overtaken a wooden archway. The original archway appears as if it has long ago decomposed, leaving a lattice of roots to define its shape. As the roots wrap and twist about the vanished form, they become fire hoses, whose lifted nozzles insinuate the buds of trees. At night blue light will emanate from the interior of the sculpture, creating a beacon that echoes Firehouse lanterns from an earlier time, and the water contained within the hoses.

Freestanding gates are traditionally used in landscape settings as a symbolic means to transform one’s consciousness. Lantern Gate is such a transformational threshold. The sculpture will encourage distractions from everyday life, allowing a return to a state of conscious strength and calm. It conveys to the visitor they have arrived at a unique place, where firefighters work in a state of watchful readiness. As a compelling visual hybrid of the natural and manmade, (the rooted and the reaching) it offers daily an evocative transition between the firefighter’s state of preparedness while in the station, and the action state achieved when responding to an emergency in the community.