Art | Futureforms
Futureforms - Defining a New Urban Experience Through the Lens of Digital Craft - San Francisco - Bay Area - United States
| 2026-03-05 |     |
What does it mean to create public art and architecture in the 21st century? As cities become increasingly digital, the boundary between the built environment and the algorithms that shape our lives is beginning to dissolve. This shift is being defined by a new era of 'Digital Craft'—a process that utilizes computational logic to move beyond mass-standardization. By treating the computer as a master artisan's tool, architecture is no longer a static object, but a site-specific intervention that responds to its environment like a living participant in the urban realm.
At the forefront of this movement is the Bay Area-based studio FUTUREFORMS, led by Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno. With over 20 years of experience, the studio has become a leading voice in activating public spaces through experimentation, engagement, and play, masterfully transforming complex computation into tangible, awe-inspiring landmarks.
Groundbreaking art: Orbital and Weatherscape
Two of the studio’s recent projects serve as powerful examples of how technology intersects with public space to foster a profound connection between people and their environment. At the entrance plaza of the OpenAI Headquarters (formerly Uber HQ) in Mission Bay, San Francisco, FUTUREFORMS has installed Orbital. Conceived as a contemporary garden folly, the structure masterfully transforms complex computation into a tangible urban icon.
Composed of thousands of digitally crafted bespoke aluminum and steel elements, the sculpture offers a dual experience: a highly reflective, perforated stainless steel exterior and an intimate, glowing interior sanctuary that the artists describe as a "Creature of the Garden". In El Paso, Texas, the studio has completed Weatherscape, a 70’ x 40’ sculptural canopy for the new El Paso Children’s Museum (“La Nube”). More than a shade structure, Weatherscape is an immersive environment designed as a "living laboratory of wonder". It channels sun, wind, and water into kinetic energy and mist, making the invisible forces of the desert visible and interactive for all ages.
Exploring the
While these permanent installations define city skylines, the studio’s internal creative process is currently the subject of a major solo exhibition: METAXIS: A Collection of Ideas and Objects, on view at the California College of the Arts (CCA) Campus Gallery through March 20, 2026. The exhibition takes its name from the Greek word metaxi, referring to an "in-between" condition—belonging to two realms at once. METAXIS offers a rare opportunity to see the studio’s evolution in its rawest form. Structured like a studio visit, the gallery features over 20 models, 3D-printed prototypes, and speculative artifacts created between 2015 and 2025.
“METAXIS explores what happens in between: between ideas, objects, spaces, and ways of seeing,” says Nataly Gattegno. “The exhibited works move fluidly between perception and imagination, inside and outside, presence and absence.” By presenting process models alongside more finished works, the exhibition illustrates how FUTUREFORMS brings together knowledge and tools from multiple disciplines—art, architecture, and computational design—to rethink how we dream and build.
About FUTUREFORMS | @futureformslab
FUTUREFORMS is an award-winning art and design studio based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Founded in 2009 by Jason Kelly Johnson and Nataly Gattegno, the duo have collaborated on a range of projects exploring the intersections of art and design with public space for over 20 years. Recent public art projects have included sculptural shade canopies, art pavilions, fine art objects, furniture and lighting, as well as large scale urban art installations and art master plan consulting.
Johnson and Gattegno’s commitment to public art stems from an interest in activating the urban realm by giving the public a way to engage, creating places for exchange, places for pause, or simply a point of connection. FUTUREFORMS’ artwork is experiential, playful, integrated, and engaged with its context, but also strives to present itself as an identifiable element in the built landscape. To do this the studio relies on rich, diverse, and multifaceted concepts that can resonate with diverse audiences, different ages, and a variety of uses: the passer-by, the tourist, or the neighbor, the adult or the toddler.
FUTUREFORMS’ work ranges in scale from free-standing pieces to those integrated into existing frameworks. Some projects require a collaborative approach with engineers, architects, and landscape architects, and an awareness of the agencies and stakeholders involved. Always intricately made, with a high degree of craft, the studio’s work varies in terms of effects, relying on geometry, light, and shadow to create memorable and impactful art.
Photo credit: Brian Wancho - Genaro Limon - Matthew Millman