Dot Dot Dot: The NINE dot ARTS Podcast
May 17, 2026 · 46 min · 20 segments
Founders Martha McGee and Molly Casey answer audience questions and share the biggest lessons learned when integrating art into the built environment. For show notes and…
Yeah, you wanna think about the, okay, so what type of project are you working on? If you're, you know, creating an urban plan, you've got a large-scale, uh, district, or you're working on a new community, uh, you wanna know where the roads are going to go.
Once you know the roadways and your basic massing, that's when it's time to start thinking about how art is integrated into those moments, because it can shift behavior.
You can have something iconic by the train station to draw people in towards that, or something iconic at the entry so that people know that they've arrived, or spaces that are gonna be festival streets could have, you know, smaller, more human-scale installations that slow you down to enjoy everything around you and spend more time at the retail and the restaurants.
So early stage, uh, in, in the urban planning section, and if you're looking at creating a building, I'd say, you know, 60% schematics, or once you're done with schematics and moving into design development.
'Cause once you're in construction documents, we want to be able to integrate things like structural backing or structural supports, uh, electrical for the lighting for the artwork.
So really, you know, before you get into CDs, if you're already there, it's cool.
We'll figure it out with you, but you'll save money and get a greater impact if you're able to plan ahead.
And there's just those efficiencies that kinda streamline decision-making down the road because people really have a grasp of the art vision early on, right? And then you're preventing costly change orders if, you know, something needs to get switched around.
Well, and the other part of that, like thinking of a change order, right, in your construction, all of a sudden you've got this unexpected cost to create something, a space, or it's something necessary for structure for an art piece that you love.
Right? So, like, uh, we did this beautiful, uh, high-end luxury apartment building in the Golden Triangle here with Cortera called Citizen.
And we got i- you know, working early, early in the process, and we knew there was gonna be something hanging in the lobby.
So while- so we were able to, at the very beginning, while the building was being built, know that this is the general area where something's gonna hang, so let's put in, you know, 9 or 10 hanging points.
You don't necessarily know exactly what the art's gonna be, but now we've got the possibility to use a ton of different artists because we've got a nice spread of hanging points that are safe and we can attach to, that are built into the actual foundation of that, uh, second-story floor.
Um, and we were able to hang an actual real-life excavation arm, like that weighs a lot-
Yeah, you wanna think about the, okay, so what type of project are you working on? If you're, you know, creating an urban plan, you've got a large-scale, uh, district, or you're working on a new community, uh, you wanna know where the roads are going to go.
Once you know the roadways and your basic massing, that's when it's time to start thinking about how art is integrated into those moments, because it can shift behavior.
You can have something iconic by the train station to draw people in towards that, or something iconic at the entry so that people know that they've arrived, or spaces that are gonna be festival streets could have, you know, smaller, more human-scale installations that slow you down to enjoy everything around you and spend more time at the retail and the restaurants.
So early stage, uh, in, in the urban planning section, and if you're looking at creating a building, I'd say, you know, 60% schematics, or once you're done with schematics and moving into design development.
'Cause once you're in construction documents, we want to be able to integrate things like structural backing or structural supports, uh, electrical for the lighting for the artwork.
So really, you know, before you get into CDs, if you're already there, it's cool.
We'll figure it out with you, but you'll save money and get a greater impact if you're able to plan ahead.
And there's just those efficiencies that kinda streamline decision-making down the road because people really have a grasp of the art vision early on, right? And then you're preventing costly change orders if, you know, something needs to get switched around.
Well, and the other part of that, like thinking of a change order, right, in your construction, all of a sudden you've got this unexpected cost to create something, a space, or it's something necessary for structure for an art piece that you love.
Right? So, like, uh, we did this beautiful, uh, high-end luxury apartment building in the Golden Triangle here with Cortera called Citizen.
And we got i- you know, working early, early in the process, and we knew there was gonna be something hanging in the lobby.
So while- so we were able to, at the very beginning, while the building was being built, know that this is the general area where something's gonna hang, so let's put in, you know, 9 or 10 hanging points.
You don't necessarily know exactly what the art's gonna be, but now we've got the possibility to use a ton of different artists because we've got a nice spread of hanging points that are safe and we can attach to, that are built into the actual foundation of that, uh, second-story floor.
Um, and we were able to hang an actual real-life excavation arm, like that weighs a lot-
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