DIY Urban Furniture Experiment

«In Strasburg, France, studies are being conducted to rethink the organization of the whole university campus. In the process, the National Graduate School of Science and Technology -INSA Strasbourg, a school for engineers and architects – located in at the very junction of the city and the campus, decided to question the use of its forecourt occupied by cars. The Collectif ETC, an association created by architects, offered to drive its transformation of use and its integration in public space. Threshold between the city and the campus, the parking lot is in search of a new identity. For a couple of months it will become a new ground for experimentation. Urban street furniture, imagined and built with the students, is aimed at testing new layouts. The car park will become a living space between the school and the street. The project started with a call for proposals addressed to the school’s students for the design of pieces of furniture. The entries permitted to conceive seven basic modules. After this stage, the students, supervised initially by the Collectif members, designed and built 33 modules that they brought one by one to the parking lot with a pallet truck. Now the modules are installed on the former parking lot. They offer various uses: soccer goals, Ping-Pong table, chess or oware boards, blackboard table, washtub bass, different kinds of furniture to seat on or lie down, etc. The objective is to experiment several layouts: the students move the modules regularly. A miniature model of the modules is available to imagine and visualize quickly other options. There is no final configuration; a simple pallet truck can change everything! What will this space look like when the campus will be redone? Here are the tools to test various options in real size. All it needs now is the students to keep on moving the modules and make the former parking lot live as a place for games, meetings, exchanges, and experimentation. So far people have been very enthusiastic about the project. The furniture was supposed to remain on the car park for a couple of weeks only, and now the school is gaining visibility from it and plans on keeping it for a few months at least»