Atlas Lab
Grand Granary
Steel and Bronze, 2024
A granary is a storage structure for seeds, from simple squirrel caches to intricate rice silos. Animals, like humans, gather and disperse seeds as they cache food, spreading them across the landscape, enabling more trees to sprout.
This mutual dependence shapes our world, from the wilds to the city. We see it in the movement of animals along abandoned railways, in the acorn granaries built by the Nisenan people who are indigenous to this land; in the intermingling of native and introduced tree species sprouting along the trail.
The Grand Granary gives shape to this process, inspired by nature through careful ecological study. In witnessing this process, we see ourselves as part of this interconnected story of trees, birds, mammals, people, and the land we share.
Atlas Lab, Grand Granary, Design Rendering, 2023
Atlas Lab
Kimberly Garza of Atlas Lab is a social and environmental focused public artist who believes that life offers its most ennobling experiences when we deepen our connection with our
surroundings. Formally trained as a landscape architect, Kimberly’s work balances whimsy with architectural rigor, testing materials, technology and scale through the use of public art projects. Kimberly’s creative process is rooted in transforming public spaces through analysis of a site, both historical and poetic realities, characterizing its systems and unique features, and assessing how to bring people together through art and landscape. Kimberly’s process always draws from history and engages the community she works in to drive her process.
Kimberly founded Atlas Lab, a woman and minority owned mission driven design practice to confront to design, build
and advocate for conscious change in the built environment to make accessible, positive and progressive impacts on communities. Kimberly’s focus is to create with purpose and build progressive change in communities. The way people understand their environment and interact in a space is the foundation for everything she does. She is extremely passionate about making healthy environments accessible to all and bringing humanistic and artistic design solutions to cities that are historically, culturally and ecologically responsive. A Sacramento native, Kimberly is fully invested in improving the Sacramento region through purposeful art the engages, educates and evokes whimsy and play.