Commissioned as part of the Association for Public Art’s annual Art on the Parkway juried open call, Franklin Thread is a living, actively growing installation that explores and envisions how organic materials and industrial byproducts might be used to build a mores sustainable future. The project involves the act of growing, harvesting, and retting flax, accompanied by a sculptural wall made out of a flax-based biogenic building material called “flaxcrete.” Richards recently developed flaxcrete with his students through his work as a professor at Temple University, where he teaches courses in architectural design, environmental systems, and ecological design.
Franklin Thread by Jeff Richards, the 2026 Art on the Parkway commissioned installation. Photo by Daniel Jackson for Embassy: Interactive.
The installation is a journey through three distinct sections of a massive “thread” representing the different phases of flaxcrete production. A Benjamin Franklin quotation from 1747, “at present, we are like the separate filaments of flax before thread is formed, without strength because without connection,” which inspired Richards’ work, is painted on the retted flax bound together.
WHYY: “The future of flax is in a brick wall built along the Ben Franklin Parkway in Philadelphia”
Flax was an essential part of the agricultural-based economy of Benjamin Franklin’s Philadelphia, but its use in North America has since largely disappeared. The growth of flax can be understood as a catalyst: it offers a new way of thinking about building in this masonry-centric city; its fibers can be used to manufacture textiles and paper, as they were in Philadelphia pre-World War II; its seeds are food, offering many health benefits; it has the potential to remediate brownfield sites; and it supports pollinators during its growth.
ABOUT THE DESIGNER: Jeff Richards is an architect and educator at Temple University’s Tyler School of Art and Architecture, where he teaches course work in architectural design, environmental systems and ecological design. Jeff leads the architecture and design practice RAD. Before founding that office, he worked for the firms of both Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Skidmore, Owings & Merrill, collaborating on a diversity of work encompassing many scales, programs and places. He holds a Master of Architecture degree from Yale University and a Bachelor of Arts from Hamilton College. Originally from Brooklyn, NY, Jeff is a proud transplant to the City of Brotherly Love.
Support for this project was provided, in part, by Creative Philadelphia and the Parkway Council, AIR Communities/Park Towne Place, and Prudent Management Associates
This artwork is part of the Along the Benjamin Franklin Parkway tour
