ATTIC
BRIDGE
LADDER
TUNNEL
CELLAR
From the treehouse to the cave,
spaces hold memories
from hot and dry to cool and damp.
The experience of these spaces
and the paths that lead to them
can hold a sense of excitement or mystery.
Design a structure or series of structures
to define a play area which creates
the thrill of the unknown.
In response to Donald Sherefkin's prompt I designed a multi-functional play space that creates the 'thrill of the unknown' by the use of sudden environmental change, anonymous creative collaboration, and disorientation.
The structure is a compilation of spaces contained in a building. The entrance is at the top of the structure, which is reached from the ground by a sloping ramp or the building can be built against a hill. The point of entry is a glass-encased foyer, which serves as a transition from outside to in. In the foyer there are any number of visually unrelated door-options for entry into the space. For example there might be a red velvet curtain, a wooden cottage door with a rounded top, a space station style automated slider, etc…
All of these doors lead to different sections of a grand "jungle gym", which is compartmentalized in such a way as to prevent people from previewing other sections and to limit people's awareness of each other's whereabouts. During the gradual movement down the "jungle gym" they find themselves popping very suddenly into spaces with starkly differentiated atmospheres. For example, one might be in a section of the jungle gym which is a round, plush, yellow velvet pod, with cello suites playing out of old wooden speakers. From there they might crawl down a large mirrored tube which has many different doors along it, one of which might lead to a glowing slide that leads surprisingly to a clear bubble located on the outside of the building, or to an all blue square pod with videos of blue birds playing on the walls. Possibly in that first velvety room there were viewing lenses framed in wood, connected to fish eye cameras filming another section of the "jungle gym". On a descent through the jungle gym they encounter many unrelated pods that come about without transition. The incongruous and unexpected themes of the pods carry an element of surprise and thus the thrill of the unknown.
Amongst the variation there are three sorts of recurring rooms or pods that allow for anonymous creative collaboration – instrumental, vocal, and paper visual.
The instrumental collaboration rooms are two rooms next to each other but reached by different paths so as to prevent the meeting of the parties inside. A sheet of fabric separates the two rooms so that the two visually separate spaces are one aurally united space. The rooms are soundproofed and will contain various basic musical instruments. For the sake of the thrill of the unknown the two parties do their best to remain anonymous, and can speak into a voice-altering microphone if they wish. In this format an improvisation can take place between two anonymous parties. In addition to creating a fun mystery, I foresee this kind of space potentially being beneficial to people with performance anxiety.
The instrumental collaboration rooms are two rooms next to each other but reached by different paths so as to prevent the meeting of the parties inside. A sheet of fabric separates the two rooms so that the two visually separate spaces are one aurally united space. The rooms are soundproofed and will contain various basic musical instruments. For the sake of the thrill of the unknown the two parties do their best to remain anonymous, and can speak into a voice-altering microphone if they wish. In this format an improvisation can take place between two anonymous parties. In addition to creating a fun mystery, I foresee this kind of space potentially being beneficial to people with performance anxiety.
The vocal pods are two or more rooms that are aurally connected by wires. The users can turn knobs to alter their voice so as to disguise themselves, for the sake of mystery. I envision this kind of room as encouraging poetic improvisation, but it is of course open to whatever uses one might want to put it to. In any case its use has the potential to result in immense curiosity about who is on the other end.
Anonymous visual paper collaboration occurs via little slots in the walls for paper exchange. These slots pop up often and can be found in any number of different pods.
Moving further down the jungle gym we encounter at some point a maze of a room with many walls of different lengths and sizes. On each wall there is a video projection of another wall in the room, so that all the walls are covered with images of other walls. (The space might take on the appearance of an analytic Cubist painting). The space will be visually disorienting, like a room of funhouse mirrors. It should be difficult to discern the precise whereabouts of other people in the room. (This room is especially fun if the building is being used for a game of manhunt or tag).
After moving through various surprising pods and having observed or interacted anonymously with the other people in the jungle gym, the people find themselves in the gigantic Verner Panton inspired basement lounge. This is a multipurpose café, reading, and playing space. It serves as both a space to unwind and breath after the confusion of the maze, and a place for the people who were previously in the "jungle gym" to see each other and begin to guess at who it might have been on the other end of their anonymous collaboration. This revealing of suspects is presumably thrilling.
When arriving in the lounge space from the "jungle gym", we land on a carpeted platform above the café. We can either walk down the stairs and enter the main space directly, or we can choose to go down a slide and land on a giant, soft, enveloping, inflatable, which is resting in a huge clear plastic basin. The inflatable is surrounded by foam cubes, which are really nice to play in. (potentially there are just foam cubes...) Under the outer rim of the plastic bowl there are café tables and chairs where people enjoying a coffee can watch people playing in the foam cubes. Quick exit from the bowl is found by sliding over the outer lip.
Forest-like walls of flexible fabric strips break up the open floor plan of the Panton space. These forests can treated as walls or can be walked through, if one so desires. If walked through, they have the same disorienting sensation that the racks of sequined skirts in department stores had when we were short enough to play under them. Moving through these walls one might see hands and feet of other people.
Scattered about the lounge space are various study and relaxation areas. They are furnished with climbable, nook-having Panton "couches", various other couches, benches, stools and cushions, as well as bungee-supported chairs, (because there's nothing more enjoyable than a bungee-supported chair!).
practical issues:
shoes, coats, bags, etc – can be unloaded in the foyer into an Ikea-style closet on wheels that rolls in and out of an elevator that stops on the bottom floor in the coatroom. (=$, employees)
bathrooms and emergency exiting – directional signs will be posted
strategically around the maze. they will be covered with flaps of fabric within elaborate frames. this way, everyone will be able to notice them, but only those who seek orientation will gain it.
emergencies - If someone has a medical emergency inside of the space, or has vomited etc.. and needs help, they can press any of the red HELP buttons located inside the directional frames. Fire alarms are placed variously around the space.
emergencies - If someone has a medical emergency inside of the space, or has vomited etc.. and needs help, they can press any of the red HELP buttons located inside the directional frames. Fire alarms are placed variously around the space.
the great expanse of the Panton Space – The Panton Space is located in the basement, so it has room to stretch as wide as it needs. its ceilings are tall and it has hemispherical, colored skylights which pop up in the grass field above the
space. People lounging on the grass can watch the people lounging inside below.
The exit/entrance of the basement is structured like a metro station and is also covered with a bubble.
location – the space would might be best utilized on a college campus, where it could also be open to the public and rentable for birthday parties.
cleaning - problematic, as many parts of the labyrinth involve crawling... I know that there is available technology to solve the issue of dust. I'm not sure what it's called... central dust vac? When I worked as a security guard in a mansion for the Sultan of Brunei at Place Vendome in Paris, I saw that the palace was equipped with a dust vaccuming sytem, small holes in the ceiling that were always sucking. This seems energy inefficient though... As for pukes and pees of kids, the cleaning staff would arrive post haste after a press of a help button. I suppose nightly cleaning is simply arduous, though doable.
never-ending list of possible pods and rooms:
-a huge room, where everything is much larger than normal scale and all the couches have skirts. mouseland under? yellow lamps in mouseland.
-a 1950's living room with elevator or Jetson's music
-a pod where everything is in shiny black plastic and the music is minimal techno. there are white opera glasses that are connected to cameras somewhere else.
-a blue velvet round pod with screens playing looping videos of blue birds that are singing, flying etc. This room should have a paper-passing slot.
-a sandbox inside of a light blue or greenish blue plastic pod on the outside of the building.
- a pod lined with hundreds of glowing buttons that make different animal noises, everyday sounds, drumkit sounds, etc. The only light in the pod comes from the buttons and the walls are black lacquer.
- a room or two pods divided by an extremely distorted lens so that two people on either side of the wall can see each other but can by no means decipher one another's identity
-an all white room with fluorescent lighting and elevator music and a paper-passing hole. visible tubing atop, painted white, with strings hanging down each with little buttons. when presses they make the light fluctuate. if the light gets yellow enough, a song will play. (lighting is hidden amongst the tubing)
various possible hallways:
tunnels: can be horizontal for crawling or tilted for sliding. can come in any size and finish, i.e. big and mirrored, medium and mine shaft themed, etc…
ladders: used to move downwards or upwards, might sometimes be stairs. will always be encased in some sort of sheathing as everything in the space must be compartmentalized. some short ladders or short sections of ladders may be unsheathed to allow for occasional glimpses of the complex of compartmentalized structures, which should appear to be a product of a collaboration between Verner Panton and M.C. Escher.
bridges: all of the bridges must be covered for the sake of compartmentalization of the space, and so are essentially tunnels. if an open air bridge exists then it is in the Cubist camera room and is therefore sheathed by manner of visual fracturing.
