The Associative Urban Furniture (A.U.F.) is designed for the city of San Jose. Costa Rica's capital so far has been struggling with the definition and acceptance of its public domain; public installations or urban furniture do hardly exist due to fear of theft or vandalism. We believe that urban furniture is an important element for the enjoyment and appropriation of urban public space. For that reason, we designed a durable theft- and weather resistant toolbox with different variations of urban furniture generated by different site conditions in specific locations. Each object is developed as an associative geometric prototype. The integrated lighting design of the individual elements will help to improve public security in the currently dark and dangerous parts of town. A first application of prototypes will be installed as a new layer of urban acupuncture in San Jose’s Barrio Escalante. The project is commissioned by a group of four major companies for public advertisement in Costa Rica.
Credit
Oliver Schütte with Ronald Fonseca and Christian Castro.
San Jose, Costa Rica, 2010.