Collaborators
ADAM FREETLY | JUAN GUERRERO | BEN TOAM | PROF. CELINE PARMENTIER
Description
UIC Architecture Program, Undergraduate Digital Media Studio
Spring Semester 2002. Design and construction of a street furniture prototype for mass production. Designed for CWC Wood Competition.
Process
Posable Street Furniture was initiated as a project that dealt only with wood construction. The PSF was conceived of as a flexible lattice that would interact with users. It was originally composed of a lattice formed from a grid of hinged and locking wood slats. The lattice would be deformed to provide seating and placed on the street. From there users could, given the desire, participate in the design by deforming the lattice.
As the project progressed we, as a class, began to take a greater interest in the social aspect of the project. We decided that a greater social utility would be preferable in a project of this nature. To this end we developed the PSF into a shelter for the homeless and street bench.
The choice of these programmatic elements necessitated a change in the composition of the PSF. We reverted from a lattice to a series of wall-supported ribs that had embedded deformations. These deformations would be achieved thru a series of predefined folding of the struts. In choosing the greater social utility the project became less of a critical study of wood construction and more of a social commentary.
