Brooklyn-based design studio— ‘The Urban Conga’ showcasing the value of play in New York
The impact of play is often disregarded and undervalued in the discussions around architecture, urban development, and city change. The Urban Conga’s work is highlighting the impact play can have on the health, identity, social, and economic values within the future development of our cities and communities. Play is universal and should be utilized as a vital part of the movement forward in reactivating our communal public spaces to become more inclusive, safe, and healthier places.
The Urban Conga’s work showcases a variety of ways this can start to be explored within our urban development. The studio was recently selected as the winner of the 2021 Architizer A+ Firm of the Year Award for Small Projects as well as the 2020 ArchDaily Best Young Practice. Through receiving these accolades, their work promotes an acceleration in the appreciation and understanding of the value of implementing more play within our changing cities and communities moving forward.
This work is paving the way for city stakeholders, urban designers, architects, and more to start exploring the idea of becoming a “Playable City,” an ecosystem of playable opportunities intertwined within the existing urban infrastructure that doesn’t just disrupt our daily lives but adds to it. Looking at opportunities that explore how play can start to exist in everyday spaces, and begin to encourage people to think about these spaces that could become PLAYcs: like a crosswalk, laundromat, public park bench, street light, or just the everyday spaces in-between.
Investigating how these once often boring or underutilized situations can turn into inclusive, stimulating, creative outlets bringing people together within the built environment.
Photo credit: Savannah Lauren
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Design challenges, 2020 was a year of iconic projects for Design Infinity
Design Infinity recently completed fit-out works for Sharjah Research Technology & Innovation Park (SRTIP). The Project spanning nine months covers a 130,000sqft four-storey building. The project comprises RTI office, common areas, auditorium, seminar halls, dedicated exhibition space, multi-purpose hall, gymnasium, and 32 offices including 18 meeting rooms. One of the unique elements in the fit-out works for this project is the cloud installation, which is one of the biggest installations of stretch ceilings/ fabric in the UAE. Aligning the support cables was a big challenge as the final elements were to be fixed nearly 20- 30m below the support structure. The total weight of the ‘cloud’ is 1,182kg. The LED lights used in the project stretch up to 375m in length and 520sqm of stretched fabric was used in the installation. The second unique element is the atriums’ 3D bench. The domes within the atriums have been designed with gypsum, acoustic ceiling, and metal works at a height of 30m while maintaining health and safety standard with no lost-time injury (LTIs). All the metal meshworks within the dome were carried out in the company’s in-house metal and glass factory in Dubai.
Another iconic project recently completed by Design Infinity is Zayed University Innovation and Entrepreneurship Centre. The total size of the project is 47,361sqft. The project has very interesting interior elements. There were lot of interior elements that Design Infinity amended with the design, to achieve best results. The main challenge of the project was working at a 16m height with scaffolding throughout the project to complete all the MEP services and structural works, without interrupting other activities. Some of the striking elements include metal and woodworks which were all undertaken in the company’s joinery factory in Dubai. The entire project uses acoustic elements in its fit-out works- acoustic ceiling, acoustic interlay carpets, acoustic lights, sound-absorbing panels, 3D mesh etc. Design Infinity earlier announced the achievement of 100,000 safe man-hours without any LTI (lost time injury) in the Zayed University Project. The company exceeded the safety standards with the completion of this reputed project.
Take a closer look at Design Museum Holon’s (Israel) current exhibition, State of Extremes, featuring works of contemporary design that tackle our world of extremes. The exhibition’s five categories – Spiraling, Extremer, Polarization, New Normals and Extreme Lab – are comprised of installations, objects, speculative proposals and videos, reveal, critique, resist, mitigate and sometimes even exacerbate extremes and the mechanisms that drive them.
Compression Cradle fits under State of Extremes’ category of Extremer. Extremes can be good, as when they push human capacities towards ever greater achievements. However, once set on a trajectory, extremes often take on lives of their own, posing questions about unintended consequences, and how far we are willing to go.
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