Italian artist massimo bartolini has developed an expansive outdoor public library entitled ‘bookyard’ for belgian art festival, TRACK: a contemporary city conversation in ghent. Bartolini has employed his creative, mixed media talents to develop a set of twelve bookcases installed in st peter’s abbey vineyard, sint-pietersplein 14, the establishment originating in the middle ages. the sweeping shape of green shelves has been constructed upon a small grassy field, then moving up the gradual slope of st peter’s abbey in line with their vines.
The units are filled with books for sale by the public libraries of ghent and antwerp with the profits of these items to benefit the institutions. Visitors to the exhibition may bring home a piece of the artwork, an object housed in the shelves of ‘bookyard’ by leaving a donation of their choosing into a small box supplied by the artist and the libraries.
ghent’s intervention project, TRACK, officially ends on september 16th, 2012.
Ahmet Ögüt’s interactive carousel, Waiting for a Bus, was originally conceived as a playful and thought-provoking alternative bus shelter to be located in Victoria Square. Later relocated to Rolleston Ave, the gently rotating carousel provided an invitation for people to enter, sit, stop and observe the slowly unfolding view of the altered city surrounding them.
This sculpture reflected Ögüt’s interest in patterns of social and public movement through urban spaces, and encouraged us to consider the daily occurrence of waiting, taking pause between more apparently significant periods of activity.
Location - Rolleston Avenue, adjacent to Canterbury Museum, Christchurch, New Zealand
Street Seats is a furniture project developed by Bade Stageberg Cox for the Pier 94 Coffee Bar at The Armory Show. The 50 chairs, found abandoned on the streets of New York, were repaired and given a new life with a coat of taxi cab yellow paint. Like the city’s residents, the chairs are an eclectic mix, migrating throughout the fair during its five-day run. The bottom of each chair is stamped and documented with the date and location it was recovered.
CAPITAL CITY_A urban project that asks citizens to post price tags - from “million-dollar tags” to “free tags” around NYC on buildings, street furniture, tiles, facades, trees, bike racks, benches and other urban spaces in an effort to unveil the hidden value of what surrounds us by examining each fragment of the city.
Tags will be available for pick up at Storefront during regular operating hours.
2005. “Für den Alten Garten” by Veit Stratmanns
This work consists of five wheeled office chairs joined back to back in a circle. The sculpture allows people to sit and move together around the building on the basis that they act collaboratively.
SKY DECK BY TORAFU ARCHITECTS in collaboration with Ishinomaki Laboratory
This is a small table made to hook onto handrails, and it uses just enough pieces of wood to do so. You can put your mobile phone or a radio on it while you hang out your laundry, or it can be used as a counter when you have a beer on your balcony on a nice day. Floating in the air, sky deck stretches a narrow balcony space out by just a little bit, into the city beyond.
Bird’s Talk by Vasily Kassab The shape of the nest was inspired from a horn loudspeaker, which gives the ability to extend the low frequency limit creating greater acoustic output. As a result, we can increase the sound of the birds. The nest designed in such a way that carrying it and mounting it becomes a matter of seconds.
Senseless Drawing Bot – So Kanno & Takahiro Yamaguchi
This is a self-generated drawing machine that using chaotic movement of double pendulum and drawing abstract line dynamically in realtime. The modified electric skateboard with double pendulum detecting the direction of the movement of pendulum by rotary encoder on the fulcrum of it and amplify the wobble by moving right and left. If it passes over the threshold, it draws to a wall in a twinkling. So the principle of operation is quite simple. This work simulates a act of graffiti by extracting the dynamism of the process of drawing by eliminating the human body and assertion from doodle action called “graffiti” that recognized as a expression method. They exploring for “what is the essence of graffiti” by presenting the elements like extemporaneousness, symbol characteristic and vandalism and trying to connect a new interpretation.
The Floating Cinema is an old work boat re-imagined into a cinema for intimate on-board film screenings, larger outdoor film events and other film-related activities curated by artists Nina Pope and Karen Guthrie (known collectively as Somewhere). The structure navigated the waterways of the five Olympic host boroughs during the summer of 2011 and during that time events were held in 26 venues and included screenings of more than 60 filmmakers, 10 bespoke tours, and was visited by over 75,000 people.
AMAGER ARK by Alfio Bonanno, COPENHAGEN, DENMARK, 2004
The Amager Ark is one component of Bonanno’s Himmelhøj (Sky High), a four piece installation commissioned by the Danish Ministry of the Environment.
There is a touch of wildness here. Occasionally, deer can be found grazing in the overgrown grass. Sometimes large puddles collect on the ground’s surface. They act as mirrors reflecting earth and sky until the water is slowly absorbed by the clay strata beneath. We can almost believe that the 60 metre oaken vessel might be floated away with a crew of children at the helm. In reality, civilization is encroaching on this playful enclave. Himmelhøj is just over a 10 minute walk from the West Amager metro station.
See what happens when you ask people to say something nice. Project by improveverywhere.com
(Source: possibleuniverse)
Green square. The “Urban Interventions” civic association, in collaboration with the Vallo Sadovský Architects studio, have prepared an instant urban intervention under the bridge. The situation in regard to quality of the environment at the bus terminal under the New Bridge in Bratislava has been bad for a long time. People have to wait for their bus connections in a totally unsuitable area, and we consider it a disgrace that the city of Bratislava leaves its citizens and tax-payers to function in such an inadequate environment. The characteristics of this place directly affect the mood and behaviour of its users, and several disturbances and conflicts have happened here in the past. It is difficult to understand how such an area, only a few metres from a historic square, has remained unnoticed by city officials and for a long time practically unchanged. Although Green Square is an instant “intervention”, the cheapest fix, it is also by its “loudness” both a provocation and a call for a more serious approach to this problematic site. It is not only the cheapest method but also simultaneously the most visible attempt to change the atmosphere under the bridge, and to highlight the dysfunctional environment that everyone accepts out of habit.
They painted an area of about 1,000 m2 with green road paint. The painting was done with standard material that is used for road surface markings, and road safety glass beads were also applied to the surface to provide reflectivity and prevent slipping. The second part of the design concept, this time graphic, was created by graphic designer Ondrej Gavalda using adhesive tape that was painted over and then peeled off.
As its creator Cho Neulhae says, the Swingers chair helps people to get closer with a smile, taking them back to the childhood.
PULSO by Al Borde Arquitectos. Estaciones de Transporte Urbano – ECOVÍA, Quito - Ecuador, 2011
londoner Steve Wheen brings greenery and miniature scenes to the streets of east london in his ‘the pot hole gardener’ project.
the idea, which was conceptualized based on guerrilla gardening, is simple: ‘my neighbourhood has a distinct lack of green space,’ wheen reflects; ‘[and] I’m a gardener with no garden.’ wheen fills potholes in roads and sidewalks with soil and living plants, decorating the spaces with miniature props to create tiny worlds. The work thus eliminates the danger of potholes as it adds an enchanting bit of art and greenery into the days of passersby, simultaneously drawing attention to the problem.
