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At its core, Public Utilities is part of an ongoing investigation into the civic potential of notation. Can we make architecture through drawing — not as instructions for building, but as space itself?

Situated on a public plaza in Logroño, Spain, Public Utilities, is a colorful installation inspired by modest utility markings on construction job sites. Often applied in bright, fluorescent colors, these preparatory markings indicate boundaries and provide instructions to workers. As instructions, these striking markings are usually indecipherable to passersby, but to the trained eye, they denote construction limits, survey markings, and utilities like power lines, gas, and communications.

Public Utilities activates multiple public spaces, including Plaza Primero de Mayo and two area schools with dynamic inscriptions that suggest new programs and patterns of use for existing public spaces. Working at multiple scales, these public instructions will suggest new organizations and pathways, but their precise use is open to civic interpretation. Visitors and residents observe and inhabit the enormous graphic pattern throughout the drawing process in a large public performance, all choreographed by a small drawing robot.

Public Utilities is exhibited as part of the 10th annual Concéntrico: International Festival of Architecture and Design in Logroño, Spain. The installation is commissioned in partnership with Iker Gil of MAS Context and debuted on April 25, 2024. Following the festival's conclusion, Public Utilities was one of four projects selected for prolong presence by the city of Logroño.