Spacious terminals present excellent opportunities for powerful artworks, as this column frequently highlights. Parking garages are perhaps less well-known or glamourous spaces for creative wonder.

But at San Francisco International Airport, a powerful lighting installation at a new long-term parking garage is providing travellers with a visual treat.

Called Coding, the installation has been designed by artist Johanna Grawunder and uses a range of technologies from dynamic lighting solutions provider Traxon Technologies to create a subtle light show that is visible throughout the day and night.

Coding uses the building’s existing steel beams and mirrored windows to suggest dots and dashes, ultimately spelling ‘San Francisco’ in Morse code. The artwork was commissioned by the San Francisco Arts Commission.

“We are in the age of coding,” said Grawunder. “San Francisco is a city of layers that can be discovered slowly in neighbourhoods and microclimates, or breathtakingly all at once, such as from the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Each layer has its own complexities and ‘codes’ to be cracked. Coding is an immersive environment installation defined through layers of codes – decorative elements that each express a specific quality and experience of the elevator tower at the long-term parking garage. These code-layers are dynamic day and night through the use of materials that respond to reflection, luminosity and programmed colour-changing light.”

Head of Traxon e:cue, North America David Brooks highlighted the power of art in creating an emotional experience. “We’re excited to work with Johanna Grawunder to help bring her artistic vision to light,” he said. “Traxon’s innovative lighting technologies have a wide range of applications, from artistic expressions such as Johanna’s installation at San Francisco International Airport, to interior and exterior facades in a variety of industries including retail, hospitality, entertainment and many more architectural applications.”

San Francisco Arts Commission Director of Cultural Affairs Tom DeCaigny commented: “San Francisco International Airport has established a reputation as not just a place where one catches a plane, but as a destination for some of the country’s most ambitious public art installations.

“With each new capital project, the San Francisco Arts Commission has the opportunity to innovate and stretch the imagination of what public art at an airport can be. We are incredibly grateful to the airport for partnering with us as we continue to push artistic boundaries.”

Coding is on permanent display at the long-term parking facility, and complements the range of art installations that feature at the airport.

San Francisco International’s public art programme is provided by the San Francisco Arts Commission and encompasses a permanent collection of paintings, sculptures, mosaics and environmental works that reflect the Bay Area’s vibrant and diverse culture.

The collection comprises more than 80 pieces in a diversity of styles and media by artists of local, national and international acclaim. Here are some of the highlights: