A piece of art generating clean energy for the city of Houston is set to be built at the East End’s Guadalupe Plaza Park in Second Ward in the coming year. Arco del Tiempo is a permanent public artwork that will measure time and serve as a shaded multi-use outdoor space. The project is a continuation of mayor Sylvester Turner’s Complete Communities, which the neighborhood is part of.

Designed by Berlin-based artist and architect Riccardo Mariano, the sculpture was initially conceived for a 2019 design competition in Abu Dhabi hosted by the Land Art Generator Initiative (LAGI), an organization committed to creating sustainable energy solutions. With the competition’s theme being “return to the source,” Mariano says the concept of the sculpture was inspired by the sun and his love for sundials.

“To mix this timepiece with the generation of renewable energy just makes so much sense to me,” Mariano says. “I thought about the atmosphere of this kind of shaded outdoor space that is activated by a beam of light that changes throughout the day and is indicating the time of the day.”

Arco del Tiempo, which translates to “arc of time,” will be 100 feet tall and 164 feet wide, built with outward-facing solar panels that will produce energy throughout the day. The inner portion of the structure will be padded with material that orients the sunlight at different times of the day. A dozen small oblong ports will let light into the dome, each one projecting a different color into the piece as the sun passes through the holes every hour. Depending on the time of day that Arco del Tiempo is visited, a viewer will get different experiences of the space. The openings can also be activated to project artificial light into the area at night or when the sun is not shining.

According to Robert Ferry, a LAGI cofounder and codirector, Arco del Tiempo is projected to create approximately 400,000 kilowatt hours of electricity per year. This energy will be metered and sent to the city then portioned off. “This will be clean energy gifted to the city for free that will help to reduce the electrical bills of this important cultural institution and perhaps others also in the East End,” Ferry says.

Ferry adds that the beauty of Arco del Tiempo also lies in its innate ability to offset any environmental impacts that might incur during the creation of the structure. He estimates that within the first five to 10 years, it will pay back its indebted carbon footprint.

While the main function of Arco del Tiempo is its clean energy generation capabilities, the time-telling and sundial nature of the piece is also geared to create a learning opportunity for young Houstonians. Mariano notes that the sculpture opens avenues to teach school-aged children about the workings of time in a playful way.

“It is in many ways a model of how we measure time on Earth and how the planet is orbiting around the sun and it is somehow a very simple representation of that,” Mariano says. “It is something that was already done thousands of years ago and not something I came up with. But it's still relevant and it can still be inspiring and educational.”

One of many projects, Arco del Tiempo is only the first in line for Mariano’s dream of creating more site-specific sustainable architecture worldwide. When placed at different latitudes, the structure will look different, as it’s based on the inclination of the Earth’s axis, he explains.

Arco del Tiempo is currently planned for a late 2024 completion and groundbreaking. Once completed, this awe-inspiring structure will not only provide clean energy to the city but also transform into a dynamic public event space, hosting a variety of gatherings, performances, and cultural festivities that will bring the community together for generations of Houstonians to come.