What is it that really makes a city safe? What encourages people to usher out of their private habitats and onto the public realm? While surveillance devices and applications that enable personal tracking are often cited as measures that can effectively curtail crimes, these services seldom allay fear or encourage active public participation amongst their users and beneficiaries. These are modes that at most help alleviate the fear that comes with the obligation of stepping out during dark hours and moving through deserted lanes for work.

A more direct approach to reviving urban centres, making them safe, encouraging collaboration and communal melding and granting a cultural soft power to cities is the integration of experiential entities and playful elements as overarching tools and themes in urban design. After all, who isn’t attracted by the zany sculptures, squiggly seats, funny totems and innovative sheds that one infrequently encounters within parks and certain revitalised urban cores? Or, perhaps, the vibrant nightly markets in several South Asian and Middle Eastern cities that invite all, irrespective of their gender, age and other stratifications, to taste traditional cuisine or scour through their culturally relevant souvenirs, under the open sky.

The rural landscape, with scant infrastructural intervention, manages to thrive in tandem with its natural counterparts, carving third spaces at the brink of the home and the workplace (their fields, forests, workshops etc.). The city, however, driven more so by capitalistic notions, only seems to be ‘building’ for all needs, be it work, shelter, leisure or commute. In this attempt to carve out the home, workplace and leisure spots within privatised lands and closed-off walls, the desire for stepping out and engaging in nonsensical banters, invented games and purposeless strolling has rightfully diminished.

Hence, the need for integrating play in the city arises, and with it, the necessity of recognising architectural and design projects as well as community-led initiatives that seek to revitalise dead pockets of the city. At the London Festival of Architecture (LFA), taking place from June 1 - 30, 2024, we spot installations that attempt to add playfulness and drive communal interaction within the urban landscape. The month-long event seeks to celebrate architecture and city-making in London, United Kingdom, every year. Against the festival’s intent, pivoted on opening up discussions around architecture, discovering new talent and testing new ideas, it is imperative to explore initiatives led in the public space as well. Now in its 20^th edition, LFA 2024, under the theme of ‘Reimagine’, includes a programme that seeks to ‘build on the mission to create space for knowledge-sharing and exploration, delivering a rich cultural programme across London’s neighbourhoods’, with various talks, workshops, performances, tours, installations, interventions and special events.

STIR enlists, from amongst these showcases, a few public installations that can serve as prototypes for larger urban interventions seeking to add joy, encourage communal well-being and create third spaces within cities. 

SQUIGGLE

London-based practice NEON, which describes itself as a fantastical architecture, art and design studio, set up SQUIGGLE at Citypoint in London. Commissioned by real estate developer and operator Brookfield Properties, the immersive art installation is designed by artist and architect, Viliina Koivisto and Mark Nixon of NEON. SQUIGGLE, on view from June 1 - September 20, 2024, is not only emblematic of NEON’s audacious public art projects that are designed to ‘elevate the everyday’ but also serve as a demonstration of the alternate usage of space and materials. Made using flexible PVC construction ducting (which is used to carry gas, water and cables within a building), the installation comprises three squiggly lines overlapping each other. “We feel that while ducting has a rudimentary role in the internal structure of buildings, it also has its own ‘material logic’, which allowed us to create a highly sculptural pavilion. This artwork represents a blurring of function and form,” shares Mark Nixon, Director at NEON.

Informed by the overarching theme of the festival, SQUIGGLE is an art installation that challenges the conventional notions of what seating should look like and invites visitors to experience an oft-frequented space in a new manner, whilst also emulating the non-linearity of life via a material showcase. Its bright colours attract attention and its twists and turns encourage curiosity, exploration and the utilisation of the installation for different activities such as sitting, walking, laying down or simply utilising its many niches for desired photography. In addition to inspiring the practice of circularity via the usage of a common construction material, the artwork will also be recycled into products such as shopping bags, bins, detergent containers, trays, flower pots, garden furniture, floor tiles, ropes and crates, encouraging the practice of recycling and reusing.

Radial

The Radial Principal Place Pavilion, again, commissioned by Brookfield Properties and undertaken by Foster + Partners, is an invigorating public installation set up at Principal Place in London. Like SQUIGGLE, this seating installation is also built using repurposed materials such as plastic bottles, scaffolding and recycled waste. However, it commands a subtler presence, seeking to offer an open-to-all space for pause and reflection. On view from June 3 - September 20, 2024, Radial is created by a team led by partners Tom Bush (Associate Partner, Architect | ARB RIBA) and Alex Szal (Architectural Assistant), alongside junior architects. The installation offers a versatile space that can host performances and events or become spaces for congregations. “Centring on themes of sustainability, community, and urbanity, the temporary Summer Pavilion at Principal Place acts as a marker for development and provides a shaded place to gather in its outdoor plaza,” the designers mentioned.

The red, blue and white flags, arranged in a radial pattern and hung from the roof of the structure, depict the worsening climate change data over the past few years, as delimited by a grading system developed by the British scientist and Professor Climate Science at the University of Reading, Edward Hawkins. “Radial embodies the concept of sustainability by envisioning a life beyond its own existence. It seeks to redefine the narrative surrounding temporary structures, shifting focus from the lifespan of the building to the lifecycle of the materials, leaving a positive legacy beyond its temporary existence,” shares Tom Bush, Associate Partner at Foster + Partners.

Street Assemblies

Urban Radicals, a collaborative studio encompassing a network of creatives, founded by architects Era Savvides and Nasios Varnavas (to solve problems across contexts and scales) designed four public installations, stationed across London, under the moniker of Street Assemblies. The installations, designed to host performances, debates, screenings, podcast recordings and more throughout the London Festival of Architecture in June and beyond, raise the question, “What if civic buildings in London’s Square Mile transformed from enclosed institutional structures into a horizontal system integrated into the fabric of the streets, opening up and encouraging public participation across discussions on the future of London and its people?”

The four installations that are part of Street Assemblies include Roundtable, Public Assembly, Speakers’ Plinth and Voicing Pod. Roundtable, an actual round table with ample seats, makes space for shared meals and discussions in both formal and informal capacities. It is crafted out of modular pre-fabricated and found elements, industrial concrete pipes, decking panels and utility poles. With different kinds of plants representing the vibrant and multicultural community in London, this installation hosts Materials Buffet at the Roundtable talk programme headed by Dr Will McLean. Public Assembly is a shaded and raised stage that serves as a street auditorium for performances such as Reimagine Soundscapes and A Midsummer Night’s Dream: with Troubadour Stageworks and workshops and community gatherings such as Pop Up Art Workshop with Bella Gomez. Both Roundtable and Public Assembly are on view until July 31, 2024.

Speakers’ Plinth includes a series of geometric public structures or plinths stationed along Vine Street, adjacent to the historic City Wall. “Referencing Aristotle’s school of peripatetic philosophy (walking and conversing), the plinths encourage the voicing of individual opinions, the sharing of reflections on the city, stories of origin, as well as prompting informal discussions and connections held along a walkable route,” reads an excerpt from the press release. Lastly, Voicing Pod is an intimate space, designed for conducting podcast-style broadcasts and interviews. Its exterior is designed to resemble a mini seed museum, with an archive of seeds historically imported into London. Urban Radicals designed the installations intending to test these ideas and creative solutions during a time when the city will be bustling with creatives and design enthusiasts.

Play Place

“Delve stands for exploring. Designing and creating places for people that have a positive impact on how we live and work,” reads a description entailing the driving force behind London-based architecture studio Delve Architects’ work. Emulating their mission statement, the English architecture practice designed Play Place, an installation configured for families and children and on view in Leicester Square Gardens, West End from June 14 - 28, 2024. The large-scale installation, created by Delve Architects and Plaey Workshop, includes a series of colourful elements arranged at random. These supersized entities can be used as tables, seats, lounging spots for children and as supersized puzzle pieces that can be reoriented by the participants to build new kinds of play spaces.

In addition to addressing LFA’s theme ‘Reimagine’, by presenting a playful and interactive public space, the architects ask, via Play Place, how play can be reintegrated into our cities. “We believe that every child in the UK should have access to a learning space that’s fun, educational and allows them to thrive. With Play Place we wanted to address this loss of spaces for kids with an installation that’s colourful and playful but that had a message about the urgent need to address this,” shares Edward Martin, Director, Delve Architects, detailing the installation’s call to action for developers and policymakers to consider the positive impact design can have on a child’s development.

Dalston Pavilion

The London School of Architecture’s (LSA) Dalston Pavilion, on view from June 3 - 30, 2024, sits next to the school’s new building at 4 Beechwood Road. The multipurpose architecture pavilion hosts niches for a variety of activities, serving as a prototype for such structures in urban spaces where a diverse population needs to be catered to. “Inspired by the traditional ‘cabinet of curiosities’ used to exhibit artefacts from around the world, the new timber structure acts as an outdoor exhibition space, dining room and classroom, in a public space close to the busy Kingsland Road,” the makers share. Designed and built by CITIZEN (an in-house initiative by LSA, led by Roy Coupland and Yang Yang Chen) in collaboration with Arup and New School of Furniture Making, with contributions from Studio Superfluo, or.this.co, Olly Studio, Orsman Construction and local residents, the pavilion, installed near Rhodes Estate and Forest Road Youth Hub, opens up the possibility for LSA to offer free-to-access quality workshops for young people in the area, which the school sees as its extended campus.

The wood pavilion includes an outdoor exhibition space for the showcase of LSA's Part 0 campaign (initiated to engage with local 11-19-year-olds and which has recently resulted in reimagining a car park site via design, craft and ecology) and a classroom for hosting workshops for young people. The triangular structure, inspired by the timber roof structure of the neighbouring Holy Trinity Church, is constructed using a series of wooden A-frames and openable in-fill panels. The dismantable pavilion can alternatively be used to host a variety of events such as panel discussions, talks, workshops and film screenings. Some of these events, scheduled during LFA include Forest Road Youth Hub’s workshop, LSA Part 0 Workshop, lino carving and printing workshops by Accelerate of Open City, RIBA Youth Forum Workshop, an introductory workshop on architecture for young people by Drawing Matter, and the film screenings of A Girl Chewing Gum by John Smith, and Legacy In The Dust: Four Aces by Winstan Whitter, to name a few.

The Floating Hide

The Floating Hide is an installation that, unlike the aforementioned projects (which inscribe fun in the urban landscape via attractive designs), seeks to create a simple space dedicated to a fun activity. By enclosing a public area in a semi-formal manner, they manage to designate a space for the act of bird watching, whilst also inspiring people to build simple structures or fixtures to usher in fun. On view from June 1 - 30, 2024, at Cody Dock, the structure is co-designed and developed with the students from the University of Westminster in collaboration with WebbYates Engineers and Nicholas Alexander.

“The structure sits on reclaimed pontoons and is constructed from cedar timber with modular lightweight hessian panels treated with gypsum and acrylic resin that have been prefabricated using the principle developed by the engineer Heinz Isler using flexible textiles. Allowing the fabric to hang downward under gravity, results in shapes which are naturally efficient as the hanging structure because it is in pure tension under gravity and does not resist any bending,” the designers mention. Guided by tutors Maria Kramer and Corinna Dean, this project is one of the several Live Projects developed as part of the Live Design Practice (set up by Kramer) and demonstrates the unencumbered imagination and potential that design and architecture students and young practitioners are capable of exhibiting when allowed to indulge in public projects.