On Thursday, 22nd of October 2019, our Space & Materiality class took a visit to The Oculus and did rough sketches of parts of the building that intrigued us, particularly fragments that have spines in them.
After the visit, we went back to class to create a new organic design that was inspired by our sketches. I took inspiration from the pen drawing of the bones that grew from the bottom left corner with one intersecting bar. I started brainstorming ideas and concepts for my sculpture.
After creating my initial sketch (the largest scaled drawing), I could see it as a potential structure in a playground. However since it seemed too geometric and not organic enough, I made revised alternatives to it as drawn around it. I was most happy with the sketch in the center of the left.
I started wire forming the structure into a wooden board. After finishing the wire form, I glued on papers (reflective and acetate) onto some of the surfaces. Lastly, I photographed it at Evelyn’s Playground at the Union Square Park. I used Photoshop to edit in the child on the slide and the child behind the structure to heighten the illusion of it being huge real-life structure.
The structure itself would be something that kids can climb onto. The reason I chose to place rainbow-colored acetate on the top of each column is so kids could climb up to look through the world in tint. Whereas the choice of reflective paper on the the other side is that kids can see distorted images of themselves, much like funhouse mirrors. Both the tinted acetate and reflective paper acts as an interactive element to the structure thus making the structure fun and enjoyable for kids. Overall, I think that the project went really well and fitted the environment perfectly.
