We’ve been invited to contribute a work to Nomadic Nature in Situ, a project of Laurie Halsey Brown’s Sense of Place Lab. 

For the 2013 installment of Nomadic Nature, the projects take place in San Francisco’s Presidio.  In July we explored the Presidio and have now crushed out on the pet cemetery there, not only because pet cemeteries are interesting and strange, poignant as well as extravagant, but also because the engineers assigned to the task of rebuilding Doyle Drive, an elevated section of highway that approaches the Golden Gate Bridge and passes directly over the pet cemetery, were required by the Presidio Trust to protect it. No small feat. A very large one actually. In an episode of Science in the City, produced by the Exploratorium and directed by Rick Danielson, Senior Bridge Engineer John Walters describes the immense roof built both to shield the cemetery and to support the falsework required for the new construction.  The photographs below show the remnants of the roof—the Dolye Drive project is nearing completion—the cemetery, and views of several large-scale works by Mark di Suvero, which are currently installed on Crissy Field.

We’re just beginning our research—yes, we reviewed Gates of Heaven and care deeply about the Ramones—but it’s likely that we’ll employ geocaching and other locative media elements.  And we like Falsework as a title.