Under the Underpass

Commissioned for an immersive Art Basel experience in Miami, Under the Underpass was designed by Montgomery Studios in collaboration with The Guild, who fabricated the installation. Set within a predominantly industrial landscape, the project introduced a spatial experience of softness, reflection, and shifting visibility.

The project draws on a long-standing interest in sectionality, interiority, and the politics of visibility. Adolf Loos’s spatial work, particularly his careful separation of service and private spaces through distinct circulation paths, has remained an important reference for thinking about how architecture choreographs the gaze. In Loos’s interiors, subtle shifts in elevation create interstitial conditions that control what is seen and what remains hidden, embedding social hierarchy, sexuality, surveillance, and desire directly into spatial experience.

Under the Underpass translates these questions into a contemporary installation environment. During the day, cut-out arches and layered translucent materials diffused sunlight across the space, creating shifting patterns of light and shadow. A gently swaying palm tree introduced a meditative presence, offering a moment of stillness and softness within the surrounding urban context.

At night, the installation transformed into a digital stage. Its layered walls became projection surfaces for real-time imagery of participants, activating questions of visibility, voyeurism, surveillance, and participation. Through varying degrees of transparency, visitors could see, be seen, and become aware of their own position within the space.

The project explored the tension between private experience and public observation, using light, projection, transparency, and atmosphere to reframe an industrial site as a place of pause, encounter, and reflection.