Upside Down

Project Brief

Explore design of public furnishings, objects, interactive installations, play equipment and experiences that have us rethinking our fragile relationship with nature in the urban context.

Project Timeline

June 7th - 11th, 2021

Team

Alana Fried, Pratt‍

Chae Rim Kang, RISD

Echo Zhan, ACCD

(I was responsible for the final rendering of the scene)

Mary McGloughlin, RIT

This project was done in an online design workshop hosted by WantedDesign. During these five-days, me and three teammates from Pratt, RISD and RIT envisioned a new space at Under the K bridge park in New york.

The 2021 workshop theme is "NEO-NATURE, rethinking our relationship with nature in the urban context". Our project has won the honorable mention in the category of “rethinking relationship between humanity and ecology”

Click here to view the workshop website.

Location

Under the K bridge Park is located at the border of the Brooklyn and Queens borough, beneath the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE). “K” is referring to Kosciuszko Bridge.

Within the park, our installation will be located in the K-Flex 2 section. which neighbors industrial cycling plants, waste management and scrap metal yards

Design Overview

Our design invites visitors to flip their vision upside down as they are immersed within the tactile environment that blurs boundaries and captures the interconnected relationship between humanity and ecology.

At the top, there are art installations made with reclaimed scrap metal pieces which works as a reminder of the consequences of our human behaviors to the environment.

The Flexible structure in the middle works as a broundary between the art installation and the greenery and rest space below and around the pillars. As the space is divided by the knitted structure, the mist again blurs that boundary and invites people to explore in between by entering the center space through the middle seating.

Design Elements

There are 11 recycling and scrap metal facilities within a 1 mile radius of the park, we will merge an ongoing partnership with this local industry and utilize local artists to achieve such art sculptures.

By using existing grey water drainage system from the bridge runoff, filtered through our rain garden living pillars, the misting system offers an experience of seeing, feeling and hearing the environment around you.

Netted furnitures with the vaccuum formed frames made out of plastic waste are placed throughout the site for the visitors to freely move around, for flexible seatings.