Basic Forms (of Urban Life)

Basic forms (of urban life) is an interactive installation that challenges the conventional norms of urban design, focusing on disruption and embracing disorder within cities and public places. The installation will be featured in Concentrico festival from 25 April to 1 May 2024 in Logroño. “The festival celebrates its tenth edition with a great transformation in which we want to visualise the future of cities and share the lessons learned about urban processes incorporating new formats, integrating publics and facing challenges that explore time as a factor of change in urban and social design.” says the curator Javier Peña Ibáñez.

The installation consists of plywood furniture varying in color and shape. These furniture serve as interactive elements that disperse and transform as individuals engage with them, moving and rearranging the pieces to connect shapes and adding new functions and meanings. The forms intuitively invite people to connect the shapes, react with creativity and playfulness, while spontaneous actions and use of the furniture also create new unplanned shapes and arrangements.

Illustration with characters by Anja Reponen

In contrast to the structured nature of the built environment, the installation takes on a life of its own when activated by people. It dynamically adapts, forming new shapes, meanings, and eliciting diverse reactions from those interacting with it.

The installation concept is rooted in the idea of designing disruptions to counterbalance over-determined built environments. Emphasizing people’s interactions, the installation evolves organically through user engagement. It stands as a statement on how we value urban spaces, highlighting the basic, yet the most important urban activities such as sitting down, play, and social interactions. The installation also highlights how these actions are often confined to rigid environments without the flexibility and interaction. Basic forms (of urban life) encourages a reevaluation of the freedom and flexibility needed in urban design to align with the dynamic ways people naturally utilize public spaces.