TITLE: WARM WAVY WHIMSY
Location: VIENNA, AUSTRIA
Date: 2021
Client: fELD 72 (CATALOGUE OF POSSIBILITIES Competition)
CATEGORY: PRAXIS
Project Type: UNBUILT
Program: FURNITURE
Narrative:
By the time humanity is collectively able to exit the pandemic, people will have been either social-distancing, quarantining, or living in isolation for almost two years. As daily life resumes, and as cities and their public spaces begin to fill again, architectural interventions that help mediate the transition into a post-pandemic future will be crucial. Warm Wavy Whimsy helps create a small and intimate public space connected by a series of long benches that serve as sculptural objects where people can sit, lounge, rest, spectate, or engage with one another while outdoors. Playing contrast with the often rectilinear spaces of public squares, plazas and parks, Warm Wavy Whimsy—through the addition of a soft, pink, foam—helps cushion a new urban seating experience where proximity to people is safe again. This project is site-flexible and can be deployed in any public space. Due to its lightweight nature, it can also be moved around if needed and can be reconfigured should an event necessitate it. Made up of machine-cut, pink insulation foam, Warm Wavy Whimsy is a digitally-fabricated and inexpensive set of benches that aim to provide a new set of contours for a post-pandemic public space. Warm Wavy Whimsy is a parametrically-designed, pink-insulation-foam, urban-furniture triptych.
