Shadow Limbs
Christopher Dorr
Prototypes with Aggregate Industries, Chelmsford Massachusetts
2008
Asphalt Option Studio | Paula Meijerink | Harvard Graduate School of Design
Photos by Christopher Dorr

The majestic oak trees of Harvard’s Holmes Field unassumingly manifest their presence as their shadows are cast on the surface of the asphalt parking lot adjacent to the field. To make this ephemeral process visible and engage this otherwise ubiquitous and banal surface, like a drawing, these shadows are etched into the surface of the asphalt ground through a process of imprinting or saw cutting. During the course of the day, for one single, fleeting moment, the sun causes the actual shadows to touch the shadows that are traced or ‘drawn’ on the ground.