The floor-to-ceiling mosaic inside a pedestrian underpass near the Wishbone Bridge received the 2026 IAP2 USA Core Values Award: Project of the Year for Creativity and Innovation, the city announced in a Monday news release.<\/p>\n
The Unity Tunnel spans a 160-foot underpass beneath Pleasant Valley Road at Lady Bird Lake. It connects the Roy G. Guerrero Colorado River Metropolitan Park to the Ann and Roy Butler Hike-and-Bike Trail.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The artwork, created by Texas artist Reginald C. Adams, features more than 689,000 hand-laid tiles in a mosaic mural with custom flagstones and a 3,000-square-foot painted mural on the tunnel ceiling.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The IAP2 award recognizes projects that use innovative techniques to engage communities. According to the release, more than 250 Austin residents helped shape the Unity Tunnel over a year and a half of \u201ccollaborative design and artmaking,\u201d with participants ranging from ages five to over 65. About 68% of the participants lived in the immediate neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Judges praised the project\u2019s use of sound baths, quiet reflection and guided meditation. They added that the community \u201cwent above and beyond decision-making and led to their investment into the artmaking,\u201d with physical contributions in the final art piece.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cUnity Tunnel exemplifies what is possible when public participation is treated as a creative, collaborative, culturally responsive practice,\u201d said Angela Means, director of the city\u2019s Arts, Culture, Music and Entertainment department. \u201cAustin residents shaped this artwork\u2019s stories, symbols, materials, and even helped fabricate it.<\/p>\n
The city\u2019s Art in Public Places Program and Adams were recognized at the IAP2 North American Conference in Vancouver, British Columbia, on Oct. 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In addition to the IAP2 award, the Unity Tunnel was also recently selected as a 2026 CODAworx Winner for Best Collaboration, city officials said.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The floor-to-ceiling mosaic inside a pedestrian underpass near the Wishbone Bridge received the 2026 IAP2 USA Core Values…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478504,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133],"class_list":["post-478503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}