Empty, underutilised city spaces may be a thing of the past thanks to a creative new solution that will be showcased today at the Sydney Design Festival.
The “Play Pod”, a life-sized Rubik’s cube, is the brainchild of Scott Carver and Hoyne and was conceived in response to the theme of this year’s Sydney Design Festival: Call to action.
Designed as a low-cost, flexible and portable modular structure the Play Pod can be adapted to suit the needs of users, and easily relocated to activate passive and vacant areas.
Hoyne principal Andrew Hoyne said that the Play Pod could be used to fill the many disused and odd-shaped plots dotted around Sydney.
“Sydney’s an incredible city, but like all complex urban centres, there are a multitude of spaces which hold so much untapped potential. We want to activate these spaces to engage the community,” Hoyne said.
“The Play Pod is an example of a nimble, small scale, low-budget idea to turn tricky, vacant city spots into inviting and stimulating spaces. It can be easily adopted by councils and developers who are trying to do just that in cities across Australia.”
Related reading: The LEGO Group HQ Opens in Denmark
“In creating a multi-purpose concept, imagination is the only limit to what can be done with the Play Pod – it can work for all age groups, at all times of the day,” Scott Carver senior associate Sarah Davis said.
The annual Sydney Design Festival is an event held every year designed to showcase and celebrate new innovations in design. This year will mark 20 years since the Sydney Design Festival was created, with the theme, “Call to Action” examining the way in which design can engage with complex global problems.
Keynote speakers announced for the festival include Zhang Ke, founder of the Chinese architecture firm Zao/Standardarchitecture and David Gianotten, the managing partner of architecture practice OMA. Gianotten and Rem Koolhaas designed the 2017 MPavilion.
The Play Pod will be hosting daily creative sessions including theatre inspired playgroups, junior book clubs and a series of activations presented in partnership with University of Technology Sydney.
In the evenings, the Play Pod will be transformed into Sydney’s smallest cinema – showing a series of short films.
The Sydney Design Festival will run from Friday 2 March until Sunday 11 March.