WANDERINGS
Variable Geographic Locations
Installation / Research
Design Team:
Principal: Sean Lally
(Benson Gillespie, Ned Dodington, Brian Shepherdson, Curt Gambetta, Viktor Ramos )
Wanderings is in pursuit of a ‘climatic infrastructure’ for commercial and public domains that augments and re-configures existing external micro-climates for occupation and programmatic use. The project operates on the existing micro-climatic variables, altering and controlling them for the use of programmatic activities. This ‘Climatic Infrastructure’ looks to ways of lifting these materials from their dependence on surfaces and services; and in doing so, to deploy them as building materials in and of themselves, thus redefining our physical boundaries and resulting in the design innovation of new spatial and social organizations for the urban public and commercial metropolis. The project doesn’t seek to simply ‘condition’ exterior spaces and reproduce existing and known climates, but instead seeks new territories of design, infrastructure, texture, and social interaction. The intention is not to simply move activities ‘outside’ but to tease out the spatial and social implications when ‘walls’ and ‘geometry’ are no longer our primary means of spatial organization.
Each piece might be thought to be rather minimal in its production of increased thermal energy, but when the units aggregate, they have the potential to make sizable changes to the local micro-climates.
Vacuum-formed PETG, a clear polyethylene plastic, is used to create a sealed air cavity containing a heat wire filament that warms the trapped air.
The heat produced by the clear plastic shapes can be engaged by either directly sitting on one of the units or shapes, or by walking between a group of the units as heat radiates into the surrounding soil and air.
The new spaces are perceivable not only through the seating shapes, but also in the vegetative growth of the warmed soil and in the clustering of individuals around the seats.
