Traces + Patterns: Olympic Sculpture Park
Seattle, Washington
150 sqft
This projected started as guerrilla architecture– a research project focused on exercising our critical eye and inquisitive design process inspired by the slow economy. It was conceived and carried through schematic observations and models before presenting the results to the Seattle Art Museum. It is now developing into an ongoing project with the SAM at the Olympic Sculpture Park.
The project is sited in the SAM OSP and was inspired by the circumstances at play between the uniquely sited, private park and its social relationship to the public users. Within this physical and social context the project draws from three primary influences:
1. The convergence of circulation paths at the site: pedestrian, vehicular, rail, marine, solar path and western horizon.
2. The need to create a seating solution that compliments the park circulation and playfulness.
3. The park’s unpopular “do not touch the sculpture or deviate from the path” policy. The designed intervention is an extension of both the park’s mission to inspire and the public’s will to act on that inspiration. It is comprised of a uniquely designed storage system and series of chairs that by their use create a documented social commentary and theater. Traces + Patterns: Olympic Sculpture Park
Seattle, Washington
150 sqft
In order to better understand how the park was being used we conducted a series of observations from a neighboring roof using time lapse photography. This observation revealed that the public migration through the park did not follow the designed circulation and that almost every patron traveled the park differently. As the park has free admission and is an extension of the waterfront, the public entered and exited the park at random often shortcutting around exhibits and paths. The park staff conversely expressed frustration with gaining feedback about how to better engage the public users. Interestingly, the analysis footage indicated that the medium bridging the relationship between the park and the public users are pedestrian chairs that, by virtue of their familiarity, relate to the public user but distract from the carefully designed and maintained park.
This study culminated in a series of time lapse films assigning colored tracers to each patron. Such as in an ant farm, the observation revealed a layer of art that the public was unwittingly creating atop the prescriptive park circulation and provided previously unobtainable information to the park staff about trends and frequency of path use. The process also identified the existing chairs in the park as the sole elements of human scale and tactile connection. As such, the chairs serve as “agents” of experience by their orientation to the art and view and the dynamic social circumstances created by their relationship to each other.
The resulting intervention is composed of new chairs that can be configured in multiple ergonomic positions relating to the mood and intended experience of the user and a storage system that nightly erases the public painting allowing for new pubic art each day. A remote camera from a bird’s eye position documents the playful configurations and displays the public art movies on a digital calendar inside the teh public lobby and playing on the screens outside the entrance of the downtown SAM.
EXPERIENTIAL TRANSECT
In effort to fully understand how the site is being used, 10 patrons were traced through the site with time-lapse photography. Each person’s rout was mapped with a grided scale - this scale documents how the user spent his time along the path, highlighting points of interest and points of fast circulation.
small amount large amount of time spent of time spent
time spent median y x path Experiential transect key Sample mapped path
10 patrons color coded and then mapped (next slide)
a. b. c. d. e.
f. g. h. i. j. Compiled experiential transects
Individual paths and transects color coded pre patron (from previous slide)
a. b. c. d. e.
f. g. h. i. j. shows that isvisited by theartwork all 10patrons andthose accessed by aspecificpath. All tenwere transects un-folded andlined-upbased onsequence ofparkartwork. This comparison
eastern entry/exit
Serra - Wake
Pepper - Persephone Unbound
Pepper - Perre’s Ventaglio III
Nevelson - Sky Landscape 1
di Suvero - Bunyon’s Chess
Calder - Eagle
McMakin - Bench
Fernandez - Seattle Cloud Cover
western entry/exit eastern entry/exit
Serra - Wake
Pepper - Persephone Unbound
Pepper - Perre’s Ventaglio III
Nevelson - Sky Landscape 1
di Suvero - Bunyon’s Chess
Calder - Eagle
McMakin - Bench
Fernandez - Seattle Cloud Cover
western entry/exit look at this area ofthesite inmore detail. be where thechairsare currently located. This findingprompted us to works alongtheswitchback onthepramenade. This happensto also walked by “Bench,” the “Eagle” and “Bunyon’s Chest”...the three art thecomparisonIn ontheprevious slide, you notice that all10patrons - Three different chair configurations were documented with time-lapse photo for 20 minutes each.
Desnity Diagrams: Each dot represents the location of a person on every slide of the 20 minute time-lapse
The Density Diagrams clearly illustrate how the configuration of the chairs has enormous effect on how the space is used & experienced PROPOSAL: new interactive seating/public art project
North
View to Puget Sound View to train tracks Path from Serra’s “Wake” to Calder’s “Eagle” Rack positioned to ‘reveal’ the view of the Puget Sound as a visitor comes around the Z switch-back of the pramenade New chair racks proposed chair racks book-end the site with the most pedestrian traffic and the most active vistas Northern chair rack oriented along axis of Elliot Ave. Southern chair rack shifted off the pramenade perimiter to inive patrons to set chairs up on the lawn View of seating rack on approach to promenade switch-back CHAIR RACKING SYSTEM steel rack
chairs inserted into niche at random. The unique chair reveal views worn short-cut path design creates an worn path from Serra undulated pattern that changes as people use and return the chairs
RACK USAGE THROUGHT THE DAY - elevation composition evolves as chairs are used.
east elevation - 8:00 am east elevation - 10:00 am
east elevation - 1:00 pm east elevation - 8:00 pm CHAIR DESIGN
chair and ottoman
stool
lounge chair The versitile chair design provokes creativity, interaction and engagement. Its abstract shape creates undulated textures in the racking system - once it is pulled out, it can fit together in numerous ways to create a variety of seating configurations. chaise The chair is made out of a honecomb fiberglass. The honecomb creates maximum strength/weight ratio and the translucent fiberglass captures & diffuses light.
throne View of seating rack and circumstantially occupied lawn - looking south detail view from lawn - looking northwest Sample interactive web presentation that documents the use of the chairs on a dialy basis. The patrons that use the park became an instrument in making an evolving piece of art that is able to be viewed online on the SAM homepage.
SEPTEMBER
Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
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13. 14. 15. 16. 17. tomorrow...?
Tuesday September 8, 2009 Thursday September 10, 2009 Wednesday September 9, 2009
COMPARE (touch one) : sundays mondays tuesdays wednesdays thursdays fridays saturdays month year The interactive web page and videos would be exhibited in the Lobby of the Seattle Art Museum Videos of the online exhibition play outside the entry of the SAM. Here the general public can witness themselves acting as an instrument of art.