The Connective Project
Prospect Park, Brooklyn, New York
2017
Awards
AIA Brooklyn + Queens Design Awards – Excellence Award Winner in the Pro Bono category
2018 NYCxDesign Awards – Winner for Architectural Installation / Pop-Up
Interior Design’s 2017 Best of Year awards – Finalist
Commissioned by the Prospect Park Alliance, the Connective Project is a collaborative public engagement project consisting of 7,000 sculpturally arranged pinwheels, installed over two acres of the park, many exhibiting artwork made by the public, onsite and through curated submissions.
The Connective Project brings color and life back to what was previously Prospect Park’s Rose Garden. Originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux as a Children’s Playground, by 1885 the area was transformed into a rose garden with three water-filled pools. While a popular park attraction in the early 20th century, by the 1970s, the pools were drained and remain dry to this day.
The project brief was to design and construct a temporary installation that the public could submit and exhibit artwork on, in an area of the park that needed visibility, to encourage public engagement with the park. Responding to the design of the garden, the concept amplifies the elliptical architectural forms of the defunct pools by expanding their shapes outwards into the garden in undulating layers of scaled and repetitive objects: pinwheels. Precisely placed with geo-mapping technology, the 7000 pinwheels made of weather resistant, printable and biodegradable paper made of stone dust, surround the three concrete basins, turning them into amphitheaters. Art generated by the public and accepted through a curation process designed by the project’s organizers was printed on some of the pinwheels, and others were decorated at on-site workshops, all of them displayed at the perimeters of the pools to facilitate gallery style viewing and engagement.
Each of the three concrete basins was turned into a seating area with its own characteristics. One featured seating made of discarded logs from the park cut at angles, another featured Adirondack chairs that had been donated to the park, and the third a custom designed bridge that facilitated differently abled visitors to access the interior of the installation.
The project was hugely popular, with the messages on the pinwheels ranging from beautiful graphics to slogans giving voice to the feelings of the community served by the park. At the conclusion of the project, the organizers of the event allowed the public to take away the pinwheels, spreading them throughout the surrounding boroughs.
Installation
Project Details
Size: 2 acres
Commissioning agency: Prospect Park Alliance
Producer: AREA4
The pinwheel was chosen as the basic unit of the installation for the wonderment it can generate in people of all ages, and ability to work with the natural environment in which it is placed. The mirrored finish stainless steel steams mounted to each pinwheel reflected the grass and disappeared into the surrounding environment, allowing visitors to experience a sense of magic.
This kinetic piece spread over two acres was installed over a period of four days. 7,000 calibrated pinwheels were carefully geo-mapped, and mirrored stainless steel posts were placed at each pinwheel point. The pinwheels were assembled on site and placed on their supports, and were dug in no more than 6”, leaving no lasting mark on the environment once removed.
The design transformed the interior of the pools into viewing galleries. The arrangement respected existing walking paths in the area, and incorporated these areas into the form and affect of the sculpture.