I N F L A T E A B L E C I T Y

OUR FINAL STRUCTURE IS BASED ON THE IDEAS FROM OUR PREVIOUS EXPERIMENTS, WHERE WE WANTED OCCUPANTS TO HAVE A CHOICE BETWEEN TWO SEEMINGLY IDENTICAL PASSAGES. ONE OF THE PAS-SAGES HAS AN OPENING INTO A SPACE IN THE CENTER OF THE OVER-ALL STRUCTURE, WHICH YOU CANNOT OBSERVE FROM THE ENTRY. WE WANTED TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT HEIGHTS, WHERE HUMAN SCALE WAS THE STARTING POINT AND THEN YOU WOULD GET FURTHER AND FURTHER COMPRESSED. IN ONE OF THE PASSAGES, AT THIS POINT OF MAXIMUM COMPRESSION THERE WOULD BE AN OPENING TO THE CENTRAL “COURTYARD”—PROVIDING RELIEF, FRESH AIR AND A RETURN TO A HUMAN-SCALED SPACE. THE WAY WE CONSTRUCTED THIS EXPERI-ENCE WAS TO MAKE A ROUNDED SHAPE ENCIRCLING A SMALL SPACE, SPACIOUS ENOUGH FOR A SINGLE PERSON’S GETAWAY OR INTIMATE ENOUGH FOR PERHAPS A TWO-PERSON CONVERSATION. USING A REPEATING, MODULAR SET OF PLASTIC TEMPLATES, WE WERE ABLE TO CREATE A STRUCTURE THAT WAS BOTH FUNCTIONAL AND HAD AN AES-THETIC PATTERN OF REPEATING SEAMS. FINALLY, AFTER INFLATION, WE USED DIFFERENT LENGTHS OF ROPE TIED AROUND SELECTED SEAMS TO DIFFER THE HEIGHT BETWEEN EACH SEGMENT OF THE RING. SOME SEGMENTS WERE INTENDED FOR STANDING, SOME FOR CROUCHING, AND SOME FOR CRAWLING. BOTH PASSAGES AROUND THE CENTRAL COURT THEN REJOINED ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE FROM THE ENTRY AT A STANDING HEIGHT TO MAKE THE TRANSITION TO THE NEXT STRUCTURE IN OUR NEIGHBORHOOD. OVERALL, WE WERE QUITE SATISFIED WITH THE RESULT OF OUR EXPLORATION, AND WERE IN PARTICULAR VERY INTERESTED IN THE POSSIBILITIES OF ADDED MEDIUM, SUCH AS ROPE, TO MODIFY THE SHAPE AND EXPERIENCE OF INFLATABLE STRUCTURES.

S K E T C H E S

T E C H N I C A L D R A W I N G S

49.5

48.1

45.9

43.0

39.4

35.4

31.2

27.0

23.0

19.5

16.5

14.3

13.0

12.5

13.0

14.3

16.5

19.5

23.0

27.0

31.2

35.4

39.4

43.0

45.9

48.1

49.5

50.0

S T A R T I N G S T R U C T U R E

T H E S P A C E I N B E T W E E N

T H E B O D Y

T H E C O N T E X T

T H E S T R U C T U R E F R O M T H E O U T S I D E