Inflatables
From CT4CT: Creative Tools for Critical Times
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Inflatables describe a range of inflatable or gas filled objects, architectures and environments.
Contents |
Projects
Bushwaffle
REBAR's BushWaffle (2008) is modular inflatable furniture designed to facilitate relaxation and inhabitation of public outdoor spaces.
According to REBAR:
Bushwaffle is modular inflatable street furniture that functions as a personal space-softening device ("PSSD"). Usable as stand-alone art objects and street furniture pieces, Bushwaffle also tessellate into spontaneous aggregations, similar to the human swarms of emergent "urban playground" events. By infusing the physical landscape with brightly-colored inflatable padding, Bushwaffle temporarily softens the rigid psychogeographic contours of the urban situation and enables new forms of unscripted collaboration, improvisational architecture and cultural exchange. Designed to transform ordinary urban spaces into soft places for experimentation and play, Bushwaffle seeks to extend Rebar's examination of the "green" movement to include the concept of "social greening" in the built environment.
See also:
- Bushwaffle
- YouTube: Ball of Bushwaffle crosses Market Street
- Flickr: Bushwaffle Walking Tour: San Francisco
Inflatable Street Sculptures
Joshua Allen Harris' Inflatable Street Sculptures (2008) are a series of animal-like creatures made of plastic shopping and trash bags and tape that are inflated and animated by the air escaping from subway grates.
See also:
- Inhabitat: Joshua Allen Harris’ Inflatable Plastic Bag Subway Art
- New York Magazine: Artist Joshua Allen Harris Turns Garbage Bags Into World's Greatest Balloon Animals
- YouTube: Air Bear
- YouTube: Air Subway Monster
- YouTube: Joshua Allen Harris' Inflatable Bag Monsters
paraSITE
Michael Rakowitz’s paraSITE homeless shelter (1997) is a direct response to the evolving needs of the urban homeless population. Inspired by the nomadic traditions of the Bedouins and the architecture of their tents, Rakowitz designed a series of tent-like plastic shelters to take advantage of the warm air exhaust emitted onto the street by the heating, ventilating, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems inside urban buildings. Thus like a parasite, the structure adapts to its host by utilizing its energy—the paraSITE shelter is inflated and warmed by HVAC exhaust that otherwise would evaporate into the air.
Beginning when he was a Masters student in Visual Studies at MIT (and a student of Krzysztof Wodiczko), Rakowitz worked with a group of homeless men in Boston to design a shelter that offered warmth and protection for sleeping out on the streets. Rakowitz’s first prototype incorporated opaque plastic in an effort to provide a degree of privacy and anonymity for its inhabitant.
As Bill, one of the homeless collaborators he worked with soon informed him, however, privacy is not a practical concern for people living on the street. Security, on the other hand, is paramount—making the tent transparent would thus allow users to see if someone intended to threaten or steal from them. As for anonymity, Bill assured Rakowitz they were already invisible enough in the world. Accordingly, Rakowitz ensured that subsequent iterations of the paraSITE shelter included translucent materials, windows and skylights.
See also:
- Engadget: paraSITE concept homeless shelter feeds on AC systems
- MoMA: Michale Rakowitz
- Wolrd Changing: paraSITE: A Decade of Urban Intervention
