The 20-color wall on Veterans Way is a cooling plant in disguise, and the number 20 is a date, not a prism.
Prismatic is a painted mural covering the chiller plant at the Veterans Way entrance to Lake Nona Town Center. Carissa Bloemeke of Tavistock Development Company designed it, and Samantha Senf of Samantha’s Walls installed it in 2020. The design uses 20 colors to mark the year 2020. The 8,500-square-foot plant behind the paint cools a group of Town Center buildings, including the Lake Nona Wave Hotel and Lake Nona Performance Club. A geometric “Lake Nona” sign finished in holographic vinyl completes the piece, and it is free to see from the street.
Most people who photograph the Prismatic wall have no idea what is on the other side of it. The answer is air conditioning: an 8,500-square-foot plant that cools a cluster of buildings in Lake Nona Town Center.
That is the pattern behind most of Lake Nona’s public art. The developer puts the art on the things an ordinary town would screen behind a hedge. The Code Wall is a parking garage. Prismatic is a mechanical building. Here is what the mural is, what its colors mean, and why several 2026 write-ups still get its age wrong.
What is the Prismatic mural in Lake Nona?
Prismatic is a large abstract mural of colored rectangles on a light-gray base, painted on the chiller plant at the Veterans Way entrance to Lake Nona Town Center.
The designer’s concept is a deconstructed prism. She has described it as if someone clapped their hands, scattered the particles of a rainbow, and let them land on the wall in a new pattern. The gray base was chosen to look like unfinished concrete, which keeps the piece industrial and lets the colors stand off the wall.
The mural has a companion piece: a custom geometric “Lake Nona” letterform sign on the wall facing the Veterans Way entrance. According to the designer, it is built from aluminum panels overlaid with iridescent holographic vinyl so the lettering shifts color the way a prism does. The Arts in Orlando guide also credits Mojo Metal Works as a collaborator on the project.
| Location | Chiller plant, Veterans Way entrance to Lake Nona Town Center, near the Code Wall garage |
|---|---|
| Designer | Carissa Bloemeke, Tavistock Development Company |
| Installer | Samantha Senf, Samantha’s Walls |
| Installed | 2020 |
| Colors | 20, chosen to mark the year 2020 |
| Paint | About 225 gallons, including primers and sealers |
| Install time | About eight weeks |
| Cost to see it | Free; exterior wall, visible from the street |
Why is there a mural on a chiller plant?
The chiller plant is a plain utility building at a main entrance to Town Center, and Lake Nona’s approach is to turn infrastructure like that into art rather than hide it.
A chiller plant is a central cooling system that serves a group of buildings instead of each building running its own equipment. According to Lake Nona, this one was built to support Town Center’s expansion, including the Lake Nona Wave Hotel and the Lake Nona Performance Club. The developer also says a central plant improves air quality, needs less maintenance, and saves 20–30% more energy than the alternatives. That figure is Lake Nona’s own claim, not an independent measurement.
The design also does some work on the building’s shape. Bloemeke put the long rectangles at the top and the short ones at the bottom, which gives the columns upward movement and makes a squat mechanical box look taller. She also tied the palette to the dichroic glass on the neighboring Beacon and Code Wall, which throw off the same kind of split light.
What do the 20 colors in Prismatic mean?
The 20 colors stand for the year 2020, when the mural was designed and installed; the count is a date, not a property of the prism.
This is the detail most coverage gets slightly wrong. Some write-ups describe Prismatic as showing the spectrum of 20 colors a prism produces. A prism does not split white light into 20 bands. The designer picked 20 because of the calendar, then arranged them by temperature.
The arrangement is deliberate even where it looks random. Cool and warm tones move in a subtle up-and-down zigzag across the building, which pulls the eye sideways along the wall. The rectangular blocks came from a page in her sketchbook where she had been testing markers. She kept returning to it while working on other ideas.
Who made Prismatic, and how was it painted?
Carissa Bloemeke designed Prismatic, and Samantha Senf’s company, Samantha’s Walls, painted it over about eight weeks using 225 gallons of custom-mixed paint.
Bloemeke is a senior graphic designer at Tavistock Development Company, Lake Nona’s developer. She also designed the chalk mural in the lobby of the Pixon apartments. Senf is a Lake Nona resident who moved up from Miami. Her crew of five came from Venezuela: Senf and her husband are graphic designers, and the others are an architect and two civil engineers. Prismatic was the team’s first commercial outdoor mural.
The process was manual. The crew laid out each block three or four times by hand with chalk lines and tape. Every block got two coats of primer and at least four coats of color. The red and yellow blocks needed at least eight layers to reach the colors in the design. The paint was custom-made by Lanco.
One correction worth making: a regional arts calendar lists “Samantha Walls” as one of the artists. That is the business name. The installer is Samantha Senf.
Is Prismatic really Lake Nona’s newest mural?
No. Prismatic was installed in 2020, and Lake Nona announced it in September of that year, so it has been on the wall for about six years.
The “newest” label keeps coming back anyway. Lake Nona’s own spring 2026 public-art roundup calls it one of the newest pieces in the collection. Orlando Style’s August 2026 Lake Nona spotlight calls it the community’s latest installation. Both repeat the language from the 2020 launch.
Newer work has arrived since. The Lake Nona Sculpture Garden opened in 2022, and Lake Nona announced public art murals for the Lake Nona West retail district in 2026. The age matters for one practical reason: this is a 2020 exterior paint job in Florida sun, so judge its condition as such.
How do you find and photograph Prismatic?
Go to the Veterans Way entrance to Lake Nona Town Center; the mural is on the chiller plant near the Code Wall parking garage, and the “Lake Nona” sign faces the entrance.
There is no ticket and no opening hours, since it is an exterior wall. The easiest approach is to park once in a Town Center garage and walk. That also puts the Code Wall and JEFRE’s Disco sculpture within the same short loop.
For photos, the wall’s appeal is its scale and its flat blocks of color. It works as a backdrop without competing with the subject. The installers say they saw a bridal shoot in front of it soon after it went up. Step back far enough to get the sign and the mural in one frame, because the sign is what tells a viewer where the picture was taken. For the rest of the route, see our Lake Nona public art walking tour.
Is Prismatic worth a special trip?
Not on its own; Prismatic is a short stop that earns its place as part of a Town Center walk.
Pros
- Free, outdoors and visible whenever you are passing, with no hours to plan around.
- A strong photo backdrop: large, flat blocks of color on a neutral gray base.
- A better story than most murals: the building is working infrastructure, and the color count is a date.
- It sits beside the Code Wall and near Disco, so it adds almost no time to a Town Center loop.
Cons
- It is one wall on a mechanical building. Expect a few minutes here, not an outing.
- You view it from the street at a Town Center entrance, not from a plaza or garden.
- The energy-savings figure attached to the chiller plant comes from the developer, not an independent source.
Our Take
Do not drive across Orlando for Prismatic alone. Walk to it. As one stop on a Town Center loop it is worth the detour, mostly for what it shows about how Lake Nona is built: the design budget reaches the utility buildings, not only the lobbies.
What the Neighbors Know
Residents mostly know Prismatic as a landmark at the Veterans Way entrance, and few know it cools the buildings around it.
The chiller plant is a reminder that Town Center is still being built out. It exists because the developer was adding the Wave Hotel, the Performance Club and more around it. If you live in Laureate Park or anywhere close to Town Center, that growth is part of what you are buying into, along with the construction that comes with it.
It also says something about how the community is maintained. A developer that paints its cooling plant with 225 gallons of custom paint is making a statement about how the public areas are meant to look. For the rest of the collection, start with our Lake Nona arts and culture guide.
Where can I read more about Prismatic?
The designer’s portfolio and Lake Nona’s 2020 behind-the-scenes Q&A are the two primary sources.
- Lake Nona: Collaboration brings new mural to life
- Carissa Bloemeke: Prismatic Mural & Lake Nona Sign
- Lake Nona Art Tour
- Arts in Orlando: Lake Nona itinerary
Thinking about living within walking distance of Lake Nona Town Center? Call/Text David Myers at 407.801.3286 or use the contact form.
Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the Prismatic mural in Lake Nona?
The Prismatic mural is on the chiller plant at the Veterans Way entrance to Lake Nona Town Center, near the Code Wall parking garage in Orlando. It is an exterior wall, so it is free to see from the street.
Who designed and painted the Prismatic mural?
Carissa Bloemeke, a senior graphic designer at Tavistock Development Company, designed Prismatic. Lake Nona resident Samantha Senf and her company, Samantha’s Walls, painted it in 2020.
Why does the Prismatic mural have 20 colors?
The 20 colors stand for 2020, the year the mural was designed and installed. The number is a date chosen by the designer, not a count of the colors a prism produces.
What is the building behind the Prismatic mural?
It is an 8,500-square-foot chiller plant, a central system that cools the air for a group of Lake Nona Town Center buildings. Lake Nona says it was built to support Town Center expansion, including the Lake Nona Wave Hotel and Lake Nona Performance Club.
Is Prismatic the newest public art in Lake Nona?
No. Prismatic was installed in 2020, and newer work has followed, including the Lake Nona Sculpture Garden in 2022 and the murals announced for Lake Nona West in 2026. Some 2026 articles still describe Prismatic as the latest installation.
