The Acid Ball is an industrial artifact left over from Georgia Pacific's paper mill on Bellingham, WA's waterfront. This 410-ton, +9,00 m (30+ foot) tall Ball of concrete and steel was moved over 300,00 m (1000 feet) from its original site to the beach edge. Mutuus Studio was commissioned by the city of Bellingham, in Washington state, USA,  to transform this imposing structure into a work of public art.

The firm devised an approach to their international competition-winning proposal that they describe as the "smallest big move." Mutuus Studio combines commodity materials, art, architecture, and urban design as part of its art installation.
Seattle firm Mutuus Studio gives a new life for Acid Ball, an iconic artifact that connects us to Bellingham’s mighty industrial past, in Washington's newest waterfront park.  Waypoint is the title for their proposal as they seek to acknowledge both its memory and its new history.

The result is a solution that honors the historical legacy of an industrial acid ball while reimagining its context and its representation to bring it into sharper focus. The firm took materials associated with roadway lane striping, high index reflective glass bead traffic coatings, and applied it to the acid ball to create a light reflective beacon. It's a lo-fi, high-design concept.
 

DDescription of project by Mutuus Studio

Located along Bellingham’s revitalized waterfront, the acid accumulator from the defunct Georgia Pacific tissue mill has been transformed into a new public art installation placed in Waypoint Park along Whatcom Waterway. Funded by the city’s One Percent for the Arts program following an international call for proposals for the “design, fabrication, and installation of embellishments” to the acid ball, the winning design proposal was by Seattle-based Mutuus Studio—a studio whose interdisciplinary design philosophy is based upon a close interaction between architecture, art and material exploration.

“The Percent for the Arts program allocates 1% of the budget from our largest projects for the incorporation of artwork. The acid ball is particularly exciting because it utilizes a phenomenal piece of industrial equipment in a new and interesting way, providing a unique landmark for Waypoint Park that honors the history of the site."

Darby Cowles, City of Bellingham Senior Planner


The circa 1938 sphere—approximately 30 feet in diameter and over 400,000 pounds—was once used as part of a relief system that held liquid and gas from nearby digester tanks that broke down wood chips with pressure and acid. It remained a powerfully authentic artifact connecting the community to Bellingham’s mighty industrial past. “There’s a real desire to understand these objects and carry them into the future so that people can understand not just an industry but the movement of time itself,” states Saul Becker of Mutuus Studio. Acknowledging both its history and its new life, the transformed artifact is titled Waypoint – a stopping place on a journey.

We began by asking, “What is the smallest big move we can make?,” notes Kristen Becker of Mutuus Studio. The studio’s concept is intentional in authentically representing the industrial character of the artifact by maintaining the integrity of the existing shape and form. Early concepts that augmented, pierced, punctured, sliced and/or changed the object into something different were quickly cast aside.

The firm's design approach is simple and restrained. At its core, it's one MACRO move at an urban scale, combined with one MICRO move at an elemental scale. At a macro scale, by repositioning the ball to the water’s edge, it becomes a beacon from land and water and a visual terminus to the existing axis of the courthouse stair. The artifact’s new location draws people into the site to explore and approach the artifact connecting it to both to the city and the water’s edge.

“When we thought of a durable, low maintenance, vandal and weather resistant coating, we realized what could be more appropriate than a coating used for highways and roads?” Mutuus Studio studied high index reflective glass bead traffic coatings (0.008 inches in diameter) and were continually surprised by experiments with this humble material and mesmerized by the way the light bounced and interacted with the environment around it.

“Waypoint” was lifted and moved over 1,000 feet from its original location near the historic Granary Building to the newly opened 33-acre Waypoint Park. From a flashlight to headlights of a passing car, from a sunbeam to a waning moon, “Waypoint” harnesses the light around the City of Bellingham and changes through every season, throughout the day and night. Notes Kristen Becker of Mutuus Studio, “As designers and artists, that was a really vital part, having something that wasn’t just this piece that you see once and you check that box, but something that you’d want to come back and experience in different light.”

Project Criteria.

Utilize the existing shape and details of the acid ball artifact.
Draw people into the site and to explore, approach, and appreciate the artifact.
Reimagine uses for commodity materials and technology in a creative way.
Implement the project within the intended timeline and available budget.
Add elements that are durable, low maintenance, vandal and weather resistant.
Create a dynamic visual impact.

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Authors
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Mutuus Studio Team.- Saul Becker, Project Artist. Kristen Becker, Project Manager. Jim Friesz, Project Architect
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“Waypoint” Project Team
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Lund Opsahl (Structural Design). Gantom Lighting (Lighting Designer).
Architectural Elements (Metal Cross Bracing Fabricator and Installers). Purcell Painting (Coating / Painting Specialists). Oxbo Mega Transport Solutions (Moving).
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Client
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City of Bellingham
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General Contractor
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Strider Construction
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Coordination with Waypoint Park Project Team
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Walker Macy (Landscape Design - Whatcom Waterway Park). KPFF (Structural Designer - Whatcom Waterway Park). Elcon Associates (Electrical Engineer - Whatcom Waterway Park). Coastal Geologic Service (Civil - Whatcom Waterway Park).
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Mutuus Studio. Our name Mutuus (moo-tus) is a the latin word for "mutual / exchange". The name reinforces our studio philosophy that design is inherently collaborative and mutually beneficial. ’s three partners—Jim Friesz, Kristen Becker and Saul Becker — architect/musician, designer/dancer and artist/builder - each contribute a unique vision to the firm’s multifaceted design mission by drawing on their diverse backgrounds to inform their work. We believe that the interaction between various disciplines allows us to find new ways of seeing things.

They founded Mutuus Studio for others like them - those who share a mutual obsession for highly crafted design, and also for the misfits that don’t feel like placing limits on what we design.
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Published on: June 30, 2019
Cite: "Memory, industry and future. “Waypoint” at Waypoint Park by Mutuus Studio" METALOCUS. Accessed
<https://www.metalocus.es/en/news/memory-industry-and-future-waypoint-waypoint-park-mutuus-studio> ISSN 1139-6415
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