by Jason King
A new regular feature on the blog will be a ‘REWIND’ of some notable projects from the past – both to show the range of work completed by Jason King (as designer, collaborator, and as PM/LA at other firms) that informs the type of experience reflective of TERRA.fluxus. This will also outline some of the more interesting research and design-oriented processes at work.
The first iteration of this will be the design and development of 4-Play – a temporary installation designed by Jason King along with two talented local landscape designers Brett Milligan and Lisa Town for last years Parking Day. To complicate (or make more interesting) matters a bit, our team took on the project as a traveling exhibit heading up to the Capitol Hill vacant lot organized by People’s Parking Lot(s).
The challenge of both ephemerality and mobility created a difficult task for the team, as modularity and the ability to achieve what was essentially a flat-pack of the concept to fit in a vehicle for transport. As we discussed options, the ability for interactivity and ‘play’ was one idea that re-emerged as a theme we wanted to pursue – not just providing passive space but to allow for a microcosmic sports experience to fit within our 10×20′ space.
CONCEPT ONE: FOOS
The idea of ‘play’ drove the original concept involved the shrinking of a soccer pitch to create a large-scale version of a Foosball table. While researching this aspect, we found a good number of these (using either real people holding a ‘bar’) or the more grandiose oversize versions like this one in Berlin… the preliminary sketches gave some indication of the scale and logistical concept we were undertaking.
In the interim, we started discussing ideas of using tires (and/or inflatable innertubes) to create some of the seating and planters – as an homage to the auto-oriented heritage of parking day. This stemmed from some earlier investigations of the makeup of roads, cars, and statements related to waste.
It became clear that our large-scale foos was going to be both difficult to build, and almost impossible to transport efficiently (not to mention well beyond our budget)… so we moved to alternative two – keeping the idea of play but investigating some other concepts (such as using tires). We got excited about the idea of something that could be packed very small – then inflated into a customized shape with seating, etc. A quick review of tire stores revealed that there were very few surplus inner-tubes available – and that it would take some experimentation to make into some inflatable creations that met our expectations (like these), so we moved on to another direction.
CONCEPT TWO: 4-PLAY
Keeping play as a concept – we decided to expand beyond one single game to create what amounted to a multi-purpose park with both active and passive areas – allowing for rest along with activity, similar to many urban neighborhood and community parks. A visit to the local Goodwill garnered some great board games, clubs & balls for minature golf, bean-bag toss, and plenty of other diversions for. Upon grabbing the Connect-Four game, another idea was spawned to create a large-scale version of this game as a draw to our park.
Picking up on the circular forms of Connect-Four, we decided to include a ground-plane Twister and the putting course, along with tables and chairs for other games. The other aspect became including some verticality to the design through landform, seating, and dividers.
IMPLEMENTATION
Construction further refined the overall concept – with a removal of the golf course, and some different seating configurations, grafitti wall/spinner, and vertical planted poster pockets and carpet twister field… a simplified construction and installation, that allowed for easy transport.
The vegetated poster-pocket wall was a great opportunity for guerilla greening of cities.
And Lisa lounging by one of the green bench/mod-wall partitions.
While the site held together pretty well as a concept – the Connect-Four was definitely the highlight, with a number of competitive games played over the course of the day and a lot of ‘Is that…’ questions from a range of visitors. See below for an action shot of me getting worked over by Brett (it was quickly confirmed that I suck as bad a large-format C4 as the table-top variety.
See more pictures of the installation here – snapped by both Brett and Lisa during the day. Our design did garner the coveted ‘Most Playful’ award – which along with the great feeling of community throughout the day, made it worth the trip. There are plans to dust off elements of 4-Play for the 2010 Parking Day event in Portland – so stay tuned for the somewhat rare opportunity to play over-sized Connect-Four. Not to be missed.
