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Posts Tagged ‘Interventions’

Inflatable Interventions: Soft Spikes Bring Roofless Ruins Back to Life

16 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

A series of architectural installations in Scotland contrast sharply with the centuries-old stone architecture and natural landscapes, featuring spiky white inflatables filling in aged cracks and gaps.

Titled XXX, these designs by Steven Messam add movement to Mellerstain’s House and the surrounding gardens — they are the first part of a series of contemporary exhibitions planned for the Borders Sculpture Park on this historic estate. The white inflatables refer abstractly to old marble sculptures that were originally to adorn the grounds.

“Pointed” emerges from an old gatehouse; “Scattered” is spread across the lake, comprised of floating bubbles; and “Towered” pokes out of an aged laundry column. Each one invites interaction and exploration of the site.

“In the use of historical buildings and the designed landscape, XXX draws on the architectural significance” of the estate, says Messam. “As interventions, the sculptures speak the language of scale – all three are bigger than a house. As studies in scale and form, these artworks have to be directly experienced in the environment to be fully appreciated, so i hope they will encourage even more people to visit this wonderful architectural gem in the Scottish borders.”

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Off the Rails: 12 Artistic Interventions of Train Cars & Rail Yards

04 May

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

As railway systems decay in the United States and flourish elsewhere in the world, works of art pop up in train cars and along disused tracks, paying tribute to the journey of a transportation system in transition. Painted murals display works of art across long distances, interior installations make trips more engaging and projects reclaiming abandoned tracks mull over their history and the scars they leave on the landscape.

Kiev Metro Murals by Okuda San Miguel

For Ukraine’s Independence Day, street artist Okuda San Miguel painted an entire train from the Kiev metro network in his signature style, full of rainbow geometry and the faces of animals and people.

Mobile Garden on Chicago’s Transit System

Chicago’s public transit system was temporarily transformed into a mobile garden for the Art on Track festival, inviting passengers to walk and sit on grass among lush vegetation as they made their way across the city.

Yarn-Bombed Train by Olek

Crochet artist Olek yarn-bombed an entire train, working for two days straight with four assistants to cover an entire locomotive in Lodz, Poland with brightly-colored camouflage-pattern crochet.

Spray-Painted Landscape Along Philadelphia Train Route

Artist Katharina Grosse spray-painted the landscape of one of Philadelphia’s train routes, including abandoned warehouses and stretches of grass, in seven vibrant colors for her large-scale public artwork ‘Psychylustro.’

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Off The Rails 12 Artistic Interventions Of Train Cars Rail Yards

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Streets Illustrated: Colorful Interventions Make the City More Fun

24 Jan

[ By SA Rogers in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

Filling the city with art by literally painting right onto the streets makes it feel like everyone is immersed in an illustration, acting out some kind of larger-than-life story. Formerly bare patches of asphalt and concrete get splashes of color, patterns and imagery that can be humorous, fun or politically pointed. Roadsworth is among the street artists best known for this style, and recently debuted a new piece referencing the refugee crisis.

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“A new record: as of today, the UN has counted 65 million refugees in the world,” he says. “I painted this in recognition of this tragic fact. Walls and Fences are for painting and climbing not for dividing and obstructing.”

In this particular mural, painted onto a street in Montréal, passersby are confronted with massive hands cling to a chain-link fence, effectively forcing them to recognize and think about the subject matter.

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roadsworth-ice-cream

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Other Roadsworth murals are more playful, like a stop-animation squirrel that appears to run down the street when the images are stacked in a GIF, and a crosswalk that has been turned into a rope bridge. A giant pink ice cream cone melts onto the pavement.

roadsworth-octopus

roadsworth-bike-path

roadsworth-singing-river

Prints can be purchased at Roadsworth.com, and you can keep up with the artist’s work on Instagram.

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Architectural Interventions: 12 Radical Modern Changes to Historic Buildings

25 Oct

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Honoring the historic significance of deteriorating buildings while reinventing them for modern contexts and usage, these architectural interventions don’t try to erase signs of aging and damage or blend the demarcation between old and new. Cracks in stone manors are filled with glass, elegant Parisian facades are recreated in stark concrete, rusted steel volumes are lowered right into the empty shells of ruined brick houses. Whether renovating or reimagining the original structures, these projects preserve history and highlight the passage of time instead of demolishing or disguising it.

Astley Castle Renovation by Witherford Watson Mann, Warwickshire, England

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Ashley Castle, a former fortified manor for England’s Royal Family that fell into abandoned ruin for decades, comes back to life in the hands of London-based Witherford Watson Mann Architects, who repaired the damaged parts of the space with an insert that simultaneously blends and contrasts with the existing walls. The new brick follows the uneven breaks in the original masonry, preserving it not as it originally looked, but as it looked prior to the renovation, with all its years of history and wear.

Blencowe Hall by Donald Insall Associates, England

All images copyright nicholas yarsley (wizzwam ltd).

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A similar approach fills a crack in Blencowe Hall in Cumbria, enabling a deteriorating former manor house to become a luxury hotel in the countryside. The south tower was missing a roof and had sustained a large breach in its east wall. Donald Insall Associates worked with local architect Graham Norman to insert a steel frame and glazed wall into the reach, retaining it “as part of the story of the building.”

The Dovecote Studio by Haworth Tompkins, England

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The Dovecote Studio is another example of radically preserving ruins that are deemed “too damaged to save” with some creative thinking. Studio Haworth Tompkins filled the empty shell of an abandoned building with a cortex steel building, which reads as an entirely separate structure within the original envelope but complements the red of the old brick as it rusts. The whole thing was preassembled and literally dropped inside by a crane. It now acts as housing for artists in residence, rehearsal space and temporary exhibition space at the internationally renowned music campus at Snape Maltings.

Kew House by Piercy & Company, London

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Very little was left of the original buildings that stood on this street within the Kew Green Conservation Area of southwest London, yet the new construction honors it all the same, incorporating it into the exterior facade. A nineteenth century stable wall acts as the defining architectural feature of the street-fronting side of a new four-bedroom family house by Piercy&Company, retaining its sense of history while allowing the construction of a modern home for modern needs.

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Architectural Interventions 12 Radical Modern Changes To Historic Buildings

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Walk on the Wild Side: 13 Crosswalk Illusions & Interventions

27 Apr

[ By Steph in Art & Street Art & Graffiti. ]

crosswalk dance

Optical illusions that seem to produce real 3D speed bumps on a flat street may enhance safety by encouraging drivers to slow down, but such colorful crosswalk paintings could soon become extinct in the United States. Now that the Federal Highway Administration started cracking down on anything that distracts from the contrast of bright white crosswalk lines, citing concerns that drivers will get confused, attempts to make intersections more interesting could come to a screeching halt. Bright patterns on asphalt may fade, but other crosswalk interventions will live on, like interactive dancing signals, fist-bump buttons and roll-out guerrilla-style crosswalks for busy areas.

Colorful Crosswalks by Carlos Cruz-Diez
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Venezuelan artist Carlos Cruz-Diez has been painting crosswalk interventions since the 1970s, creating potentially disorienting effects for the pedestrians who walk along them. Some of the street paintings seem to morph in color and shape, taking on movements of their own, as you cross. “The daily journey through urban spaces changes our personality and makes us into habitual beings who obey rules that nobody questions,” says Cruz-Diez. “The artist can create ephemeral expressions that, by generating completely new events, transform urban ‘linearity’ and at the same time inject an element of surprise into urban routine. These ephemeral works are a way of producing different readings of urban spaces and of deconsecrating the utilitarian objects of urban furniture.”

Faux Roadblocks Encourage Drivers to Stop
crosswalk 3D safety

crosswalk roadblock 2

Drivers might actually slow down for pedestrians trying to cross the street if they think their car could get damaged by barreling forward – or at least, so hope two women in India who created this illusion. As you approach the intersection, it looks like there’s a roadblock, but it’s an anamorphic effect. As seen in the second photo, the technique has also been used in China.

Interactive Dancing Crosswalk Signal
crosswalk dance

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Tiny car manufacturer Smart hopes pedestrians will be so mesmerized by their animated dancing crosswalks signal, they’ll forget to jaywalk. A nearby dancing booth translates the dance moves of passersby into the ‘don’t walk’ silhouette, adding an element of interactivity and making the performance entirely unpredictable. Smart says 81% more people stopped at the light instead of walking out into the street while it was installed.

Virtual Speed Bumps

The idea with faux speed bumps like these is to catch drivers’ attention just briefly enough to get them to slow down, but not so much that they cause a traffic disruption. Philadelphia hoped to boost safety in the streets with these triangular 3D markings, which cost a fraction of real speed bumps and require very little maintenance.

Virtual Wall Crosswalk
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If the illusion of road bumps isn’t enough for you, maybe a virtual wall projected right in front of your car will get you to hit the brakes when approaching a pedestrian crossing. This concept by designer Hanyoung Lee uses plasma laser beams to project oversized pedestrians in front of vehicles, making it very clear that they need to wait a minute before continuing.

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Walk On The Wild Side 13 Crosswalk Illusions Interventions

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Hack Your City: 12 Creative DIY Urbanism Interventions

13 Mar

[ By Steph in Art & Installation & Sound. ]

DIY Urbanism Main

If city officials won’t do their part to make public spaces more fun, efficient, useful, comfortable and creative, citizens will take matters into their own hands. DIY urbanism, or ‘hacktivism,’ is the practice of altering urban environments in ways that aren’t officially sanctioned, whether by turning vacant lots into temporary playgrounds, adding swings to bridges, seed-bombing neglected city spaces or knitting giant hats for bus stop shelters.

City Swings

DIY Urbanism City Swings 2

DIY Urbanism City Swings

The spaces under piers, beside bridges and beneath industrial remains are transformed into instant playgrounds with surreptitiously installed swings funded by The Awesome Foundation for the Arts and Sciences. The Los Angeles chapter of the group awarded its $ 1,000 2011 grant to artist Jeff Waldman, who chose underutilized spots around the city to install temporary swings. A similar project hung spill swings from the handrails on San Francisco’s BART public transit system, while the more complex 21 Swings project in Montreal coordinated the urban swings with music for an interactive experiment.

DIY Urban Furniture

DIY Urbanism Furniture Stair Square

DIY Urbanism Furniture Sign Chair

DIY Urbanism Furniture City Living Room

If there aren’t comfortable places to sit and hang out in urban locales, perhaps the people should just create them, whether they turn scaffolding into instant hangouts with bracket-equipped furniture or bring specially made tables that fit perfectly onto public steps. Some temporary installations have gone so far as to create entire urban living rooms complete with couches, bookshelves and coffee tables that invite passersby to take a seat, relax, get to know each other better and enjoy impromptu musical performances. One particularly creative guerrilla seat design is simply a piece of plywood printed with an icon of a chair that attaches quickly and easily to street signs and can be folded up when not in use.

Vacant Lot Playgrounds & Hangouts

DIY Urbanism Vacant Lot Mini Golf

It’s incredibly frustrating when your neighborhood lacks a decent playground or public recreation space, yet multiple vacant lots surrounded by razor wire-topped fences waste away for years on end. Why should such spaces be closed off to the public when they’re not in use? Many DIY urbanism projects focus on reclaiming these spaces with non-permanent setups for community gardens, swing sets and even mini golf. Repurposing vacant lots maintains a sense of vitality and egalitarianism in the community, especially during times of economic sluggishness when planned construction projects are indefinitely delayed.

Yarn Bombing

DIY Urbanism Yarnbombing

Who wouldn’t smile at custom-crocheted sweaters for trees, phone booths and bicycles? Yarn bombing is the practice of adding knitted and crocheted additions to all sorts of public objects, just for the fun of it. Bus stops are given giant winter hats, bus seats get a lot cozier and stop signs suddenly become red flowers with the addition of green leaves and a ‘stem.’

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City Hacktivism 12 Fun Diy Urbanism Interventions

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