Completed Projects

Mikyoung Kim Design

Boston, MA

The Nexus Project

Stainless steel, programmed lighting, paving, landscape

2018

Mikyoung Kim's Nexus Project for the UNC Charlotte Main station and the adjacent plaza originated in the spirit of university learning, abstracting the idea of a core of knowledge.  Her resulting designs communicate a message of movement, transition, and flux.​

Sitting on a direct axis with the Student Union, the station plaza's most prominent feature is Mikyoung Kim's 100 plus running feet of functional sculpture that invites interaction. Her two large, elongated, undulating, and fluid perforated stainless steel forms are centered on her beige pavers.

Kim's choreographed lighting program, activated by motion sensors, enhances the plaza as students walk through to access the plaza or station platform.  Colored light fixtures are attached to four poles around the perimeter of the sculpture.  The light and shadow play of the sculpture reinforces the theme of constant transition. 

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Mikyoung Kim's plaza landscaping is a collaborative effort between the artist and the project landscape architect, Kourtnie Vincent.  Shade trees and a planting bed of contrasting grasses and shrubs curve around the plaza along with a group of Crape Myrtles situated next to the sculpture.  Kim's dark granite and brick pathways radiate out from the plaza and lead to the station platform.​

The artist's glass windscreen designs incorporate world maps with each continent's landmass outlined in blue and further defined by vertical white and grey lines curving through the maps representing the world's time zones in 5 minute increments. The shadow play here is conditioned by flux and time and will be exaggerated as the sun passes through the glass, lengthening and shortening the shadows throughout the day. The art on the metal cladding at each shelter column further mimics the linear nature of her art.  

Artist Bio

Mikyoung Kim is an award winning artist and designer whose work has focused on the choreography of light and color in the public realm. Her work seamlessly integrates public art, landscape design, and architecture, and has been granted numerous awards from the American Institute of Architects, the American Society of Landscape Architects, and others. She founded Mikyoung Kim Design in 1994 after acquiring degrees from Harvard Graduate School of Design and Oberlin College and is now Professor Emeritus at the Rhode Island School of Design.