Exploring Enriching Environments
Ah, Portland, specializing in making spaces more friendly and playful in somewhat unique ways:
This flower mysteriously appeared in a not so friendly pothole.The pothole had been reeking havoc on many a car tire and bike riders were terrified of it. But alas the flower has come to the rescue and now Mr Pothole is not intimidating at all as Ms Flower brings a smile too many.
Several great scientists, philosophers, and kids alike know the power of a good park bench. Thankfully park designers are learning that too:
That most prosaic of public furnishings, the New York City park bench, has morphed into a blank canvas on which designers, landscape architects and artists have unleashed their fantasies.
Architects and park officials say the trend has gained momentum as the city has reclaimed its waterfront and turned forgotten public nooks into plazas.
park furniture has the power to stop people in their tracks and have them take a seat. Abigail Hansen, a 24-year-old graduate student who lives on the Upper West Side, set out recently to walk along the Hudson River all the way to Chelsea. But she was sidetracked when she happened upon a group of curvaceous chaise longues made from molded fiberglass in Riverside Park South at West 62nd Street near the river. “When I saw these I decided to stop,” said Ms. Hansen, who was flipping through an Italian fashion magazine. “The surface is nice and smooth and the material doesn’t get too hot.”
via Designers Stretch Out Imaginations on Park Benches – NYTimes.com.
What parks do you visit that have amazing benches? Tell us in the comments below.
This article brings up an interesting idea of a “forced” playful space. You can certainly encourage creativity and playfulness, but forcing the issue can backfire in a bad way.
“We have recently seen many offices that try to evoke a kind of forced playfulness,” says Sam Hecht, founder of London-based Industrial Facility. “Slides, chill-out zones, ping-pong, or a kind of home-like interior. We were very suspicious of this.”
For his own take on the flexible office system, Hecht and his partner, Kim Colin, adopted a more nuanced approach to getting employees to think fondly of their office–and not view them as places of mandatory drudgery. Locale, for Herman Miller, uses modular pieces that easily adjust in place and height to create what Hecht calls neighborhoods.
I definitely agree that everyone has to buy in or the “playful” environment doesn’t truly exist. A space designated for “play” just becomes a dead zone at work if nobody wants to hang out there, or knows they’ll be scolded by fellow workers for disrupting work, or viewed as “lazy.”
I’m curious to hear more of why the Locale design would make people feel more neighborly. Thoughts? Ideas? Leave them in the comments below.
Great insight from Tim Brown of IDEO on how playing in the dirt can forge great leadership skills:
Over the years, I’ve given a lot of thought to what gardening, design, and creative leadership have in common.
Gardening is generative, iterative, and user-centered
When designers in our Chicago studio first planted a roof garden, they noticed people were picking and eating the strawberries and tomatoes and leaving the eggplants and tomatillos to rot on the vine. They soon realized that planting a work garden for 60 busy people is very different from planting a home garden for a family of four. Project deadlines simply took priority over cooking, so any plants that took extra steps to prepare were ignored. The next year, the designers planted a “Grab and Go Garden” that contained only fruits and vegetables that could be eaten straight away. This time, more plants were eaten, less were wasted. A good garden, like good design, needs to meet the needs of its users.
Augusto Pirovano, in Milan, Italy with 2 other friends we made a project called Critical City Upload:
A game of urban transformation that uses a web platform and asks its players to perform creative missions. So far CCU is not very different from Edgeryders, the fact is that the missions are – instead of stories and reflections to write and share with others as it is on Edgeryders – creative actions that are generally performed in the public spaces of cities. The player picks the mission, shuts down the computer, gets out on the street, plays the mission, collects the necessary proof of his experience and then, after returning home, publishes the mission attaching photos and videos. As the player gets points, he levels up until he reaches level 7 and wins the Mechanical Box (a mysterious box that is delivered at his home).
Some examples of missions:
more via We create games for urban public spaces | Edgeryders.
A Victorian terrace has popped up in east London that lets you swing from its ledges, run up its walls and generally defy gravity. Architecture critic Oliver Wainwright hangs loose at Dalston House, the novelty installation by Argentinian artist Leandro Erlich.
The artist talks about “enjoyable discovery” and playing with spaces that you might not otherwise think of.
I love how it is an interactive piece of art that only exists when people play with it.
A fun way to encourage public participation in space and creativity.
In order to celebrate its 10 years of activity, the artistic centre Lungomare in Bolzano Italy has recruited the ConstructLab/exyzt team composed by Alexander Römer, Gonzague Lacombe, Patrick Hubmann and Mattia Paco Rizzi. The result is the creation of Teatro del Mare, a wooden temporary structure, both a contemporary stage and street furniture, hosting a series of events, meetings and screenings until the end of June.
LIEU d’ÊTRE by the French Compagnie Acte is more than a performance. The project is an urban collective experience involving, both in the creation and the production of the event, professionals as well as inhabitants of a block of flats or of a whole neighbourhood. It uses the tool of dance to explore the pattern of the city.
more via In public space we trust.
On a more playful note, I love the idea of having public garden festivals where everyone is invited to come out and admire and enjoy nature, and each other’s company.
Yes, yes, yes! Accessibility for all! Allow everyone to be able to use their environments and stay in their communities! Different generations living together in a community is better for everyone!
I’ve been watching episodes of American Hipster Presents – a fun video series about different entrepreneurs/artists/etc. around the U.S. (side tangent, how crazy is it that we live in an economy where I can write entrepreneurs/artists/etc. and have that not be weird? Hello Etsy!) – I came across the freak bike builders of Portland. It’s a group of guys and gals around Portland that build their own bikes and then pedal around town in bike gangs, playing games, hanging out with friends, and being overall pretty silly.
To me this is a great showcase of grown-ups making playful spaces and space for play in their lives.
The main interviewee says it best [paraphrasing]: “Kids get to play on bikes, why shouldn’t grown-ups?”
It also makes me kind of want to move to Portland.
Mental Flowers 