giving space back to the public.

following the site visits to brooklyn my interest was in the temporality. temporality of the materials as well as the temporality of the site conditions or state. the stalled construction site dithers on the spectrum of enclosure, non-enclosure, existence and non-existence only at this temporary point in time. the city wide condition was also something that, like many of us, sparked my attention. the over all quantity of these construction sites within the small area of williamsburg was always a point to address in my project proposal.

almost immediately i turned to pneumatics because of both its similar and contrasting characteristics to the stalled construction site. like the stalled construction site the inflatable blurs the distinction between interior and exterior with self challenging boundaries. however the experiential qualities of these elements are very different. while the stalled construction site is hard, cold and dead, the inflatable with an inviting glow offers a warm, safe and attractive space. pneumatics also share a temporal aspect similar to the stalled construction site. they have the ability of being inflated or deflated at an instance or over a period or time. with this easy of erection comes the ease of mobility. a movable instillation proposal is an ability that can be exploited to possibly address the city wide condition of multiple sites all with a fluctuation of activity turning on and off.

further i wanted to push these ideas of blurring interior and exterior and use fickle or indefinite boundaries to play a role in the project proposal. this ultimately led me to using an inhabitable safety wall as a primary prototype. by pulling the inflated wall into the site, it was able to still act as a safety wall but allowed for a larger space to be created for a larger party gathering. the relationship between this central gathering area and the surrounding inhabitable wall questions what is interior and what is exterior on the inflatable as well as the construction site. by allowing the wall to fold back on itself, around and even over itself, spaces can be further blurred.

from these formal moves my interest shifted to the challenge and control of public space. by pulling the inflatable safety wall into the site and making that area accessible, space is being given back over to the public realm. the inhabitable area within the wall is also to be considered a public path of travel similar to a city side walk. as this path of travel is allowed to enter into the side the distance of public space is increased. this progressed the design of the safety wall to be continuous. as the wall parades the streets, public space is consistently being challenged. other moves deployed to increase the amount of public space include manipulating the width of the inflated sidewalk. by stretching the inflatable wider as the path enters a construction site it creates another larger gathering space or construction park for seating, group activities, parties, performances or rallies.

the invasion of the pneumatic instillation on the city of williamsburg, new york offers a surprise of experiential phenomenon while exercising a critique on the social affects and impacts these stalled construction sites are having on the people of the city. it offers an encounter both familiar and foreign to the people and inhabiters. the scale of its existence is exhausting but appropriate to the quantity of stalled sites in the city and the girth of their projected undesired quality in the public relm.