The Score is the winning concept for the Art and Music Promenade (AMP) located along a highly pedestrian alleyway in Grand Center, St. Louis’ historic art and music district. 

The Score is a translation of the alley’s building facades into musical notation. Bands of color, acting as abstracted notes, take their dimension and placement from alleyway windows, doors, walls and wires. These notes, flowing down the building walls onto the ground and across painted stanza lines, create a site-specific musical expression that can be experienced synesthetically by Promenade visitors. 

The key challenge for this project was to create a landscape that emulated the ephemeral quality of the musical experience. A musical work changes significantly based on a venue’s acoustics, instrument quality and even climate conditions. To this end, the project team developed a thermo-luminescent paint that changes colors based on temperature and emits light at night. On a warm day, or responding to human touch, the paint appears one color while on a cold day or in the shade the paint transforms into another. 

As temperatures shift, people interact with the space, day turns to night and seasons turn - the promenade’s color palette will shift, creating an ever changing, dynamic and engaging landscape that can be enjoyed by Grand Center residents and visitors.