For years Pasha Rafat has been preaching public art as a process that integrates artists, architects and engineers. In Site Conditioned: Drawings by Siah Armajani, Richard Fleischner, Robert Irwin & George Trakas, the artist and UNLV professor spells it all out.

Rafat curated the show of project proposals by artists who are more likely to sculpt the earth directly or respond to environments, creating experiences rather than objects. Some drawings are works of art themselves: Armajani’s dense and colorful bridge renderings that display his appreciation of Russian Constructivism and Trakas’ sketches for a Hudson River waterfront project at Beacon Point.

A view of Siah Armahani's Irene Hixon Whitney Bridge at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. Photo by: Kristen Peterson

The show also includes Fleischner’s renderings MIT’s Lower Courtyard project—concrete double arcs with paths intersecting—and a rejected proposal for the Irish Hunger Memorial in New York, which comes with drawings and images (the Irish coastline, for example) for context.

Irwin, who’s visited and lectured in Las Vegas several times, contributed his renderings for the “Black on White,” a 40,000-pound black granite wedge at the J. Paul Getty Museum, home to the Irwin-designed Central Garden, referred to as a living sculpture.

These are no small efforts, and Rafat, who teaches an art in public spaces class (sponsored by the Las Vegas Arts Commission), hopes it will demonstrate the possibilities to visitors—students and otherwise.

“All these guys come in at the beginning of the project, not as a Band-Aid,” Rafat says. “They want to be integrated, to be lost in the process. With this exhibit, we want to show behind the scenes, the concept part and where you start.”

With the exception of the Atomic Passage streetscape enhancement on Casino Center Boulevard, Las Vegas has been slow to embrace projects in which artists work with engineers. Accompanying the exhibit will be a panel discussion with the artists at Fifth Street School.