The Seeking Shelter Public Art Installation!

This past weekend the Seeking Shelter bus stop shelter came to life as a public art installation at the ZERO1 Biennial Art & Technology Biennial. Below are some images of the project.

Installation set up on Friday Sept 12, 2012

Solar lights illuminate the roof of the structure at night.

Hanging wall garden and youth designed patterns reflecting on local community. QR codes link to website pages with student statements about their designs.

listening to the Seeking Shelter Design Challenge SoundCloud set

Playing on the "Mr. Potato Head" side of the bus stop shelter. People used MakeDo components to add shelves and vases.

Above: de-installation of the roof. It takes a village!

Instagram and Wall Garden

Experimenting with window decals and Instagram and Printsgram for the Seeking Shelter installation walls. Below is the decal film I bought at Staples with a Printsgram set printed on it. I envision people sharing Instagram images of Silicon Valley and printing them on window decal film at the ZERO1 Biennial. Visitors will stick them to the bus stop shelter installation.

Below is the back side of a polygal wall with images showing through.

Can on a string phones & wall gardens

I am very excited that Monkey Wrench Design is donating two cans on a sting phones to be used into the Seeking Shelter installation at the ZERO1 Biennial.

1. The public will be invited to plug in their mobile devices and search specific tags in SoundCloud and listen to the audio there.
2. The public will be invited to submit audio recordings of what they would like to see in a bus shelter (these statements they will tag with "seeking shelter"). I am so jazzed about this integration. I am beginning to sketch out how this set up will look. Here is my first concept sketch below. 

Below is a sketch of the back side of the bus stop installation. It will have various interactive components:

1. The bus stop will have a herb wall garden of recycled plastic bottles. There will be a QR code link to a google form for people to submit recipes.
2. Youth designed radial patterns reflecting on community as well as and instagram image will be made into window decals. Visitors will submit the instagram images and I will print on window decal film for them to place up on the walls. These will light up like stained glass at night.

Wall garden test using polygal, Makedo parts and water bottles.

Above, starter plugs bought from Glow Hydroponics. The goal of the installation is to inspire youth to think outside the box and envision what they would add to a bus shelter.  The bulk of the project is the Seeking Shelter Youth Design Challenge that will launch in the fall.

Above is the structure so far. It will be painted soon.

Seeking Shelter Installation Construction

This week I have been working with my father and children in constructing the Seeking Shelter installation for the ZERO1 Biennial. My father took my design sketches and has created the components that will come together to form the bus stop shelter. It has become a family affair with my children and dad helping.

My father testing out the layout of the roof attachments temporarily on short lengths of tubes. The final pillars will be 8 ft tall sonotubes generously donated by Pacific Paper Tube Inc.

Cole and my father work on designing connection points of pillars to roof.

Measuring for polygal walls.

Emily and my father priming part of the roof structure.

Emily and I are priming roof component.

David Okada cutting the base of the bus shelter.

The base of bus shelter is beginning to take shape. The base will be assembled from three panels that connect to each other with pop out pin hinges. These initial construction came together seamlessly due to my father's great planning and labeling of the parts which he hauled up to San Jose from his L.A. workshop. In a few weeks we will continue priming all the components and paint the final colors. I also hope to be getting polygal plastic for the walls of the structure.

One wall of the bus stop shelter will be an interactive surface projection using a wii remote interactive surface set up. Another wall of the shelters will invite visitors to add laser cut vinyl window decals. Another wall will have a hanging garden that is similar to this design of a hanging water bottle garden. All of these activities are to inspire youth to envision ideas for their creations for the Seeking Shelter Youth Design Challenge.

Cole creating a water bottle planter. Rows of these will be hung in rows from the outside of the shelter on one wall. We are planting mint, lettuce and some other plants.

Seeking Shelter Installation/ More Model studies

David Okada has been busy making another rough model study of my concept for a public participatory bus shelter installation that will be a part of the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial in September. He surprised me by sticking in scale figures that are my mom, sister and my children! The roof here does not reflect the shape or materials of the actual installation. The roof will be more dynamic that what is seen here.(see earlier blog postings) The final roof is made of pvc tubes and will be covered by floating polygal shapes sandwiched between mesh.

The stickers in this model (he used translucent Zip-A-Tone...remember that medium!) represent vinyl window decals that the public will stick to the polygal walls. I will be taking youth pattern reflections on local community and will be translating them into vector files (Illustrator) so that I can laser cut colored vinyl film, hopefully at the TechShop, to create the decals.

How will people interact with this installation?

1. They will add vinyl decals (of various sizes and colors) to the walls to create a colorful collaborative collage. At night the shelter will light up like stained glass. (day and evening activity) This idea is inspired by the Obliteration Room by Yayoi Kusama.
2. Using a wii remote interactive surface set up, the public will explore creating a large mural of patterns created from local photos. This will be on one wall of the shelter. (evening activity)
3. Using Makedo connectors, the public will add components of polygal and cardboard to grow the space and to add their ideas of what other features it could have. (day and evening activity) We will be adding pre-drilled holes to the polygal to facilitate the connection of Makedo parts.

Table activity of small scale model making:

At the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial, there will also be tables set up at which the public can create small scale models of innovative bus shelters they envision. I just posted info in this lesson plan at Instructables. 5th graders I taught this school year will be assisting in teaching this workshop at the festival. We will have a diorama in which to photograph the festival creations and upload them to a flickr set for sharing with the schools participating in the Seeking Shelter Design Challenge.

Seeking Shelter Installation Roof Design

Top view of roof

Underside view of roof

My dad, toy designer David Okada, has been busy working on creating the roof framework for the Seeking Shelter installation that will be a part of the 2012 ZERO1 Biennial. He heat bent pvc tubes to create the arch drawn in our sketches. The wooden discs will anchor the roof to the pillar supports. The thin wooden strips are channels for the polygal walls to slip into.

As a former VP of Boys Toys at Mattel and as a former Director of Inventor Relations at Mattel Toys, my dad has a deep knowledge of materials and construction techniques for both prototyping and for final design constructions. I am very lucky to have him working on this project!

We will be painting both the wood and pvc tubes. I will be sourcing the sonotube support pillars and polygal wall materials in the next few days. In the coming weeks we will be considering how we will possibly integrate Makedo elements into the pieces so that festival attendees can add their building ideas to this bus shelter. I also will have a wii interactive surface setup on one of the bus shelter walls so that people can create dynamic mural patterns on the walls using Repper and photos youth have taken of Silicon Valley.

At tables nearby, we will have model building workshops where people can create prototypes of multipurpose bus shelters, photograph them in a diorama and then upload the images to a flickr site to share as inspiration images for the Seeking Shelter Design Challenge.

Google SketchUp/Seeking Shelter

 

 In the last few weeks I have been conducting Google SketchUp workshops with 5th graders at two schools, one in Cupertino and the other in San Jose, California. I am working with 132 students. Students are learning how to create solid geometry forms from plane geometry shapes and are thinking about creating a 3D space that people move through. They will be creating their vision of bus shelters. On the surfaces of their structures they are applying their pattern designs reflecting on community.

 What I learn in teaching these workshops has led to revisions in lesson plans on the Slot Shelters site in the Google SketchUp workshop section. I have been fortunate to bring in HP tablets loaded with SketchUp in to the classrooms. The Krause Center for Innovation has been very generous to loan me these computer for these workshops. In the coming weeks student designs will be uploaded to the SketchUp 3D warehouse.

Seeking Shelter Model

Top view of scale model by David Okada

This week I have been exploring designing the Seeking Shelter conceptual bus shelter model with my father, David Okada, who is an engineer and toy designer. He created this mini model based upon our sketches. In the above image, I digitally added a few of the student pattern designs to the structure. I am looking to cut many vinyl shapes of student designs for visitors of the installation to add to the structure. I will be exploring seating as well. The roof may be colorful mesh and window screen netting. The pillars will be cardboard concrete pour tubes. Walls will be translucent polygal. This is the basic design, but the form will end up being a bit more playful and will allude to the slot cards and the prototyping design process.

Accessorizing a Conceptual Bus Shelter

Yesterday as I was sketching ideas for my Seeking Shelter bus stop installation I got an email about a great Kickstarter project, Can Over IP Technology. This is a tin can string phone that hooks up to a cell phone or laptop. I quickly sketched two of them into my design (see detail of sketch below.) I would love to have a few of these in the Seeking Shelter bus stop installation. These tin can phones invite playfulness and  imagination. They fit well with the materials I am using: cardboard tubes, window screen netting and elementary student pattern designs.

Who can be grumpy talking on a tin can string phone?

Seeking Shelter Installation

Day view of structure. Vinyl decals are added by public. These decals are silhouetted shapes are designed by local 5th-6th grade students. The installation will have many decals of different sizes to add.

Night view with structure lit up

Another concept sketch

Working on refining sketches for the Seeking Shelter installation for the ZERO1 Biennial in September. I will be working with polygal, cardboard tubes, pvc tubes, wire, small concrete pours and window screen netting. Visitors will attach vinyl decals (designed by local elementary school students) to the walls. One wall will be a wii interactive surface. More to come.

These colors in the sketch are just to give form to the sketch. The Polygal sample I have is translucent white but I may be getting it in different colors. Will see. I need to now make a scale model. The final piece will be around 4' x 8' x 9'.

A Seeking Shelter youth design challenge will be hosted at the Slot Shelters website and will launch with the ZERO1 Biennial. The challenge invites youth to design innovative bus shelters addressing local needs. More info on the Seeking Shelter Design Challenge is here at this google presentation doc.

Judges:
As of yesterday, these professionals have agreed to be judges of the Seeking Shelter youth design challenge:

1.       Michael Dudley, professor of architecture, the Royal University College of Art, Stockholm, Sweden http://www.kkh.se/

2.       Adam Royalty, Lead Research Investigator at the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (the d.school)  http://dschool.stanford.edu/bio/adam-royalty/

3.       John Locke (New York architect) http://gracefulspoon.com/blog/2011/07/06/dub-002/

4.       Margaret Simmons-Cross,  VTA Highway Project Manager