As a pair of European designers have demonstrated, it is in fact possible to intertwine the fun-factor of trampolines with utility. And the world is now a better place. First off is the proposed trampoline “Bridge in Paris,” a design that was put together by Atelier Zündel Cristea of AZC Architecture Studios.
His describes his floaty bridge thusly:
It appears to us that Paris has enough bridges. Our intention is to invite its visitors and inhabitants to engage on a newer and more playful path across this same water.
We propose an inflatable bridge equipped with giant trampolines, dedicated to the joyful release from gravity as one bounces above the river.
Is it dangerous? Probably. Would it ever get approved? Doubtful. But I’m still excited to see this getting so much press, since that indicates that people are interested and hungry for opportunities to get outside and play!
As you digest your turkey and reflect on a hopefully happy Thanksgiving, I am offering this summary of a recent conference session that talked about how to integrate biophilia into urban spaces and cities. As the human population increases, more people move away from the country and into the city, yet as humans we still crave nature and natural environments. Three researchers suggest how to go about addressing that.
As you digest your turkey and reflect on a hopefully happy Thanksgiving, I am offering this summary of a recent conference session that talked about how to integrate biophilia into urban spaces and cities. As the human population increases, more people move away from the country and into the city, yet as humans we still… Continue reading
Install public art to create community, sense of place
Install public murals and other public art to create a sense of place and add beauty to urban spaces, which leads to more interest in and conservation of the environment as a whole, including the natural environment.
Yarnbombed tree
Public art creates a sense of place and space, and makes people more aware of their environments, more invested in the space, and more interested in preserving other things in their environment.
From a Grist article: “dozens of painted plazas, dubbed Intersection Repairs, pepper the map not just of Portland but also of Los Angeles, New York, St. Paul, and Seattle.
“In Seattle, a City Repair chapter formed and facilitated several intersection painting projects, including a ladybug in the Wallingford neighborhood. Residents meet annually to repaint the mural and hold a block party. “Our goal is to cut down traffic and bring the community together and create a sense of neighborhood,” Eric Higbee, who led the ladybug painting, told the Seattle Times.
“It’s not about the paint,” says professor Jan Semenza, a professor of public health at Portland State University who lives near the Sunnyside Piazza and has researched intersection repairs. “It’s about neighbors creating something bigger than themselves.” As an everyday intersection becomes someplace special, residents begin to experience the value of community.”
There are other examples of public art and murals being installed that have created a renaissance in a neighborhood, from New York to Brazil.
Guerilla street art has also started to appear over the last couple of years, creating awareness and interest in preserving the community. In Seattle, when a woman knit a sweater for a tree, it created interest in the tree and a desire to preserve it. Even something as simple as “repairing” walls and buildings with colorful Legos, such as the work that Jan Vormann has been doing for the last couple of years, has made people more invested in repairing and preserving their community.
While it is not a direct impact on the natural environment, it is a positive impact on the built environment, and does create a sense of place and overall higher investment in the neighborhood and local environment.
A recent article in the online magazine Co.EXIST discussed a study that found children benefit from being in natural environments, even if the environment is designed to appear natural but is actually human-made:
Dawn Coe, an assistant professor in the Department of kinesiology, recreation, and sport studies at the University of Tennessee spent time observing the behavior and time children spent playing on a local playground. After playground renovations added a gazebo, slides, trees, a creek, and a natural landscape of rocks, flowers and logs, Coe returned a year later to observe differences. Working with a statistician, Coe found children spent twice as much time playing in the natural landscape, and were less sedentary after the renovation and more active.“Natural playscapes appear to be a viable alternative to traditional playgrounds for school and community settings,” said Coe in a university statement. “Future studies should look at these changes long-term as well as the nature of the children’s play.”
I attended a conference a couple of years ago where playground designers were reporting discovering the exact same thing – if you give a kid a pile of dirt and tree bark to play with and a bucket of water, they will have WAY more fun, play more, and learn some things as well.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise based on previous research on us humans:
For decades, scientists have reported our species exhibits a consistent, if not quite understood, response to spending time around nature: it boosts our mental and physical well being.
The scattering of findings have held in hospital beds, public housing, and Japanese forests. A 2001 study of public housing found the mere presence of trees and grass reduced reduced reported aggression and violence. Another showed people shown a stressful movie recovered to a normal state–as measured by metrics such as heart rate, muscle tension, and blood pressure–“faster and more complete[ly]” when exposed to natural rather than urban environments.
However, a lot of cities and schools are reluctant to install these kinds of playgrounds since they are considered “untested” or approved by several school or city boards. Thankfully, according to the article, cities are beginning to adopt and install these types of playgrounds:
“Natural playscapes are part of a growing trend appearing in cities across the US including Boston, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, Auburn and others.”
I hope to see more of these pop up around major cities. Do you have a natural playscape near your home? Tell us about it in the comments below.
Overview of Singapore’s financial district; how do we make our living environments better as our cities grow? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I love these OpenIDEO public challenges, so I was thrilled when I saw this challenge alert pop up in my inbox (and then unfortunately let it get buried for a week, oops!) about ideas on how to make communities more involved and engaged in their environments.
Public agencies such as Singapore’s National Environment Agency would like to envision how to rejuvenate our local environments to inspire and enable communities to make our living environments better – and are eager to collaborate with the global community to explore solutions which resonate in Singapore and across the world.
In this challenge we are looking to try and explore the following questions, both for Singapore and for communities everywhere that face similar challenges.
How might we better collectively solve problems facing our neighbourhoods?
How might communities look out for each other more?
How might we provide a safe space for positive and constructive action?
How might we help passive citizens become active contributors?
How might the role of the government evolve in the future, with regards to local neighbourhoods?
In short, what does community ownership look like in 2012 and beyond? The National Environment Agency invites you to join us in designing better answers, together.
Let’s collect examples of existing initiatives and explore the challenge topic to inform our ideas for the upcoming Concepting phase.
It’s a question that I bring up a lot on the blog, and share different examples of how communities around the world are doing just that, from adding public art to bee and butterfly gardens to building playgrounds. I am bubbling with excitement over this challenge, and have lots of different ideas, but there are only 14 more days to submit ideas and I want to make sure mine are really good, eek!
What have you seen that worked in growing communities to keep the residents and developers motivated to preserve the surrounding environments, rather than bulldoze them over for a quick couple hundred bucks? What are some of your ideas? Have you seen any story of community building on this blog that screams “Yes, this is the answer!”? Submit your ideas at the OpenIDEO website.
ASLA blog The Dirt has been reporting on their annual meeting, and mentioned a talk discussing why public art is important. I couldn’t agree more!
…art occupies a unique position within the art world. In comparison with big-name gallery shows, public art is often “under appreciated” much like landscape architecture. But there’s lots to laud: “It’s free. There are no tickets. People don’t have to dress up. You can view it alone or in groups. It’s open to everyone.”
Community art can also create attachment to one’s community. According to Bach, studies have looked at the economic development benefits of art, but only just recently have there been wider examinations of the effect of art on a community’s sense of place. The Knight Foundation’s Soul of the Community initiative surveyed some 43,000 people in 43 cities and found that “social offerings, openness and welcome-ness,” and, importantly, the “aesthetics of a place – its art, parks, and green spaces,” ranked higher than education, safety, and the local economy as a “driver of attachment.” Indeed, the same story may be playing out locally in Philly: a survey of local residents found that viewing public art was the 2nd most popular activity in the city, ranking above hiking and biking.
An example of public art; “Tree Futures” by Suze Woolf. Photo from the Heaven and Earth Exhibition in Carkeek Park, Seattle, 2012.
It creates community by creating a sense of place, it is available for all to enjoy, and it makes a place more enjoyable in which to hang out. All of these are important for creating enriching environments. Also, by making the art public, people often feel they have ownership of the art, or a right to play with it. This can be good and bad; if they art is designed to be engaged with, more power to the people. However, some people do act upon the art in a destructive way, either accidentally or intentionally, which is play to them but ruins it for the rest of the public.
This brings of the life cycle of art, and it being taken care of or abandoned over time, which was also discussed at the meeting:
Bach also made a point of discussing the “afterlife of public art,” what happens once it’s out there. As an example, she pointed a work by Pepon Osorio, a pavilion at a Latino community center that features historical photos of people from the community. Today, kids from the neighborhood take photos of themselves with photos of their ancestors. Another project called Common Ground in a footprint of a church that burnt down was hosting weddings just a week after it opened. While these works became part of their communities, Bach said the group still has to work hard to ensure that all works remain relevant to their communities and aren’t “orphaned.”
Some art is meant to be abandoned; at Carkeek Park in Seattle there is an annual public art exhibit where often the installed art pieces are left at the end of the summer to decay or be destroyed by the elements.
Art installation at Carkeek Park, Seattle, 2012
Overall though I think interaction with public art is a good thing. Do you or have you ever played in fountains, posed with statues or art pieces, or altered them in some way (like the Fremont people in Seattle)? These are all forms of play inspired by public art, which I think are valuable methods of play and should be encouraged so long as it doesn’t damage the artwork.
Waiting for the Interurban is memorial to the trolley/rail line that once ran between Everett and Tacoma. Standing at the north end of the Fremont Bridge, these five aluminum commuters (and one dog) have waited since 1978 for a ride that never came. Decorating the statues with seasonal apparel, political signs and other props has become a Seattle tradition.
What is your experience with public art? Do you find it a good use of real estate? Do you have a statue or fountain or public art piece that speaks to you, that you think of as “yours”?
Playful design in an urban environment? My favorite!
Clever and talented Danish artist Jeppe Hein has been custom-making his “Modified Social Benches” for museums, arts festivals, and plazas since the mid-2000s. Most recently, he created a unique set of art you can sit on for Beaufort04, the fourth Triennial of Contemporary Art by the Sea this summer in Belgium. Kids, cool kids, and adults all seem to love playing with these.
Hein says his powder-coated aluminium “social benches” borrow their basic form from the standard park bench, but are altered to make the “act of sitting on them a conscious physical endeavor.” As they mutate, the benches become spaces to “inhabit,” rather than just places to park it and relax for a moment.
The pieces may seem like fun one-offs, but something then happens between the work and the community: “As is the case with much of Hein’s work, the Modified Social Benches on the dyke in De Haan seem to hide behind a disguise of fun and entertainment. But what they actually evoke is a process of interaction and communication that works on different levels.”
I loved playing with Legos and building blocks as a kid (and actually still do); all the possibilities of what to build, and the ability to tear it all down and start over. Well here are two different ideas from Inhabitat about using that same concept of moveable, removable, and piece-meal design (in a good way):
A green initiative called Softwalks has come up with a way to use existing scaffolding as support stations for fun and lively modular public spaces using their awesome little DIY kits that contain easy-to-build pieces such as a chair, a counter, and a green trellis. The components latch onto the metal beams to create simple impromptu hang-outs and rest stops for busy city dwellers, making the possibilities for sidewalk beautification endless.
The project’s greatest aspect is that anyone can get involved. The kit pieces are modular and lightweight, making them easy to install, take down, and reuse in new areas. The kits also create a public art activity, involving the community to brighten up their construction-heavy areas.
Walrus Toys’s Chimeras is a new line of plush toys that allows your little creative genius to build his [or her] own wacky stuffed animal critters with different interchangeable snap-in ears, arms, legs and wings each day as the mood strikes.
What if a bat really wants to have giant elephant ears to match its wings? You’ll end up with a Batephant! What if a bunny wanted to swing on tree branches, but needed the monkey’s long arms? You’ll have a Bunkey.
These are really adorable, and definitely a step up from Mr. Potato Head. I love how kids’ toys are moving away from the electronic “can only do one thing and LOUDLY” mentality and moving back to more creative play. Robotics toys and robotic dance competitions seemed to be a huge thing a couple of years ago, which is also very modular.
What other creative, modular ideas have you seen pop up lately, either as urban architecture, toys, or other arenas? Leave a note about it in the comments below. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to make this a new series in the blog!
There’s a part of me that always says “well yeah, duh!” to this kind of talk, but I think it’s also one of those things that needs to be repeated over and over and over until people get it and start acting on it.
There’s a part of me that always says “well yeah, duh!” to this kind of talk, but I think it’s also one of those things that needs to be repeated over and over and over until people get it and start acting on it.
I’ve been pulling from The Dirt, the blog for the American Society of Landscape Architects, a lot lately, but there’s been a lot of great stuff coming off of their blog lately, including this conversation about the increase of urban agriculture, usually in the form of community gardens:
At the Greater & Greener: Reimagining Parks for 21st Century Cities conference in New York City, Laura Lawson, ASLA, Professor and Chair of the Department of Landscape Architecture at Rutgers University, described how urban agriculture has experienced explosive growth in recent years. According to a survey produced by the American Community Gardening Associationand Rutgers University, community gardens are now found in all 50 states. Some 445 organizations responded to the survey, listing a total of 9,030 gardens. Of these organizations, 90 percent have seen increased demand over the past five years. Also, some 39 percent of the gardens listed were built just in the past five years. These organizations have a variety of goals, including food production and access, social engagement, nutrition, education, and neighborhood revitalization.
Sarita Daftary then discussed her work as Project Director of East New York Farms. East New York is the easternmost neighborhood of Brooklyn. A community of 180,000 residents, East New York is underserved by fresh food markets. The East New York Farms program (see image above) seeks to engage the community through its 30 backyard gardens and 24 community gardens, employing 33 youth interns, 80 gardeners, and 100+ volunteers.
The program addresses neighborhood food access through its farmers markets, growing and selling a diversity of unusual foods that reflect the diversity of the neighborhood.
Community gardens put power back in the hands of people to improve their environment AND their nutrition. Feeling like you have control of your self and your situation is extremely important to humans, both at home and in the workplace, so even if it’s not going to solve world hunger, or even hunger in the U.S., it will help out a lot of people live happier, healthier, more enriching lives.
Mental Flowers 