FLATLANDS II

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Flatlands is fictional archive for nearly 200 game boards. Within this theatrical space, two players compete to find the perfect board to please a judge and win the game.

Each round, players play cards from their hand that create changing criteria for the comparison. There are adjective cards and noun cards, which combine to make statements like colorless geometries or nostalgic characters. (Of course, colorless characters or nostalgic geometries are just as possible.) The players argue their case before the judge, who picks the winner.

In Flatlands, the field of play is a cultural space, as players argue over visual aesthetics and social meanings of the colorful game boards. It is also a narrative space with a fable-like quality - two archivists search through a randomly organized collection of objects and then present their case to a judge, whose word is law.

Originally commissioned by
Babycastles

Venue
New York City · 2010

Photo
© 2013 Dane Sponberg

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Large-scale physical installation

Collaboration with
Game designer Eric Zimmerman

Exhibition
XYZ · Alternative Voices in Game Design

Venue
Museum of Design Atlanta

Year
2013

More details about Flatlands

GREY · PLAYTEST CARPET · COPENHAGEN

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The carpet was crafted by hand in Nepal and the soft, bumpy contour creates a pleasurable surface for standing, sitting or lying. The irregularity of the balls and the outline shape are reminiscent of a lichen and its unpredictable filaments.

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Carpet design

Size
150cm by 150cm

Material
3000 handmade woolen felt balls

Manufactured by a fair trade company in
Nepal

Year
2013

GREY · PLAYTEST CARPET

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Playtest Carpet is constructed out of large felt wool balls, with a diameter that ranges from 2 cm to 3 cm (3/4″ to 1″). The playful irregularity of the balls and the outline shape give the carpet the random terrain of a map. The soft, bumpy contour creates a pleasurable surface for standing, sitting or lying.

Playtest Carpet comes in three standard sized (small, medium and long runner). The modular units are designed to be assembled into multiple compositions. Like a spreading amoeba, the carpets form a wide variety of layouts.

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Carpet design

Sizes
small · medium · long runner

Colors
Grey · Teal · Yellow Ochre

Material
handmade woolen felt balls

Manufactured in
Nepal

Year
2013

MAISON BÉRARD · ALPS

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The building sits in the old core of the village, adjacent to a dense forest. It was constructed in the 1950s, following a traditional Alpine “tower house” model, and was later renovated in the 1980s.

The renovation maintains the existing features and oddities of the original 1950s structure. The ceilings are low (barely 200 cm in places), and the rooms and windows are small. Yet everything is well-proportioned to the overall modest footprint of the house: 5.5 by 5.5 meters.

New elements introduced to the building include thin white steel stairs that connect the three upper levels and basement, integrating the overall space. Two added skylights bring in soft and diffuse interior light. The interior wood paneling and the original windows in dark reddish larch evoke a strong feeling of warmth, in this region of long, cold winters.

The renovation will result in a home that combines contemporary elegance and subtlety of detail, while honoring the quiet strength of the original dwelling and the way it transitions from the social life of the village to its surrounding natural environment.

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Renovation of an Alpine dwelling

Status
2013 design development
2016 completed

Location
Cogne · Italy

Year
2013

OPEN LIBRARY · NYU GAME CENTER / TISCH

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The Game Center is an interdisciplinary program at New York University that explores the design and development of games as a creative practice.

The Open Library provides access to digital games within a context of critical analysis and discussion. With a catalogue of nearly 3,000 game titles, the library is a community center, hosting student clubs, curated exhibitions, and tournaments.

The modular furniture system is designed to adjust to the many activities of the Open Library. The elements include a 10' long desk, movable shelves, and rolling stools that use magnets to form a larger board game table.

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Furniture and space identity design

Client:
NYU Game Center · Open Library

Location:
Tisch School of the Arts, New York City

Year:
2012

In collaboration with:
Takeshi Miyakawa Design

INTERFERENCE · PARIS

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Interference is a social and strategic game where you win by stealing from other players.

Five suspended, super-thin steel walls, dotted with patterns resembling cell tissues, act as vertical game boards. Each turn you must steal a piece from another game going on between other players.

While each match takes place in a local area of one of the walls, the games themselves can move across the walls – and games even collide with each other as they drift across the walls’ surfaces. Interference encourages players to negotiate, argue, and scheme with and against each other, across physical space, social space, and the spaces between games.

Interference won the IndieCade Interaction Award in 2012.
It has recently been exhibited in Los Angeles, Dublin and Moscow.

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Large-scale physical installation

Collaboration with
Game designer Eric Zimmerman

Commissioned for the exhibition
Joue le Jeu

Venue
la Gaîté Lyrique · Paris

Design collaborators
Rebecca Jones Sterling · Tim Szetela

Stainless steel panels · five walls · 3m x 3m each
manufactured by Caino Design · Italy

Carpentry · poplar wood pawns
manufactured by Adelina Blanc, Antonio Cozza, Tarcisio Pozzi

Photo · © 2012 Maxime Dufour Photographies
Video · © 2012 Emeric Adrian

TIMES SQUARE HEART · NYC

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NYC Heart is a playful light installation proposed for New York City’s annual Valentine’s Day celebration.

The work invites Times Square visitors to step within a cloud of hovering lights – mounted on 600 thin steel poles -  and experience, for a short moment, a comforting, human-scaled moment of play.

The design gives a nod to the transient nature of Times Square and the blurriness of light and love.

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Proposal for New York’s annual Valentine’s Day celebration

Lead Designer
Nakworks
with
LoT
Game/Interaction Designer
Eric Zimmerman

Status
Shortlisted proposal

Location
Times Square, New York City

Year
2012

STARRY HEAVENS · MoMA NYC

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Starry Heavens is a game that incorporates a life-sized gameboard of 67 steel plates and ten large-scale, helium-filled meteorological balloons.

It is a social and strategic game that is also a moral fable - for one Ruler and any number of silent players. The Ruler stands in the center and calls out “BLACK,” “WHITE,” or “GRAY” – commanding the other players how to move. The game creates a stylized dance, as players shift about the gameboard, working with and against each other to overthrow the Ruler.

The game unfolds within a space defined by the gigantic hovering balloons. The Ruler’s goal is to stay in power long enough to pull down a central helium balloon.

A later staging of the game in Berlin incorporated a live band that improvised along with the Ruler’s commands, making the Ruler the conductor of a procedural musical experience.

Video
Daniel Wilson · with music by Michael Sweet

Photo credits
Rebecca Jones, Philip Reuta, Abigail Simon, Raymond Yeung

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Large-scale physical installation

Collaboration with
Game designer Eric Zimmerman

Originally commissioned for
ARCADE  ·  event organized by Kill Screen

Location
Museum of Modern Art’s sculpture garden · New York City

Date
27 July 2011

PLAYTEST CARPET

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Originally made for a game designer, playtest carpet was inspired by game pieces scattered on a table.

The carpet was crafted by hand in Nepal and the soft, bumpy contour creates a pleasurable surface for standing, sitting or lying. The playful irregularity of the balls, the color pattern, and the outline shape are reminiscent of an undulating amoeba or the unpredictable borders of a country.

The carpet is constructed out of 6000 large and colorful (3 cm diameter) woolen felt balls.

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Carpet design

Size
300cm by 250cm

Material
6000 handmade woolen felt balls

Manufactured in
Nepal

Year
2011

FLATLANDS I

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Flatlands is fictional archive for nearly 200 game boards. Within this theatrical space, two players compete to find the perfect board to please a judge and win the game.

Each round, players play cards from their hand that create changing criteria for the comparison. There are adjective cards and noun cards, which combine to make statements like colorless geometries or nostalgic characters. (Of course, colorless characters or nostalgic geometries are just as possible.) The players argue their case before the judge, who picks the winner.

In Flatlands, the field of play is a cultural space, as players argue over visual aesthetics and social meanings of the colorful game boards. It is also a narrative space with a fable-like quality - two archivists search through a randomly organized collection of objects and then present their case to a judge, whose word is law.

Flatland was originally commissioned by Babycastles in 2010 for their Manhattan gallery.

It has since appeared in 2013 at the Museum of Design Atlanta’s exhibition XYZ – Alternative Voices in Game Design and in 2017 at the D-DAYS in Paris.

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Large-scale physical installation

Collaboration with
Game designer Eric Zimmerman

Exhibition by
Babycastles, in collaboration with Showpaper

Curator
Matthew Hawkins

Graphic design
Rachel Morris

Location
New York City

Year
2010

DRIFT

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DRIFT is a game that takes the form of a building. This is no accident: the constraints of Sukkot building construction very much resemble the rules of a game.

Soft cotton felt modular shapes, set within a wandering lattice, suggest the fabric of temporary tent dwellings. The game of DRIFT uses this wall and ceiling grid as a game board labyrinth where players seek each other, drifting across the structure.

Traditionally, a Sukkah exists within an established domestic sphere. But the inhabitants of Sukkah City will be strangers. DRIFT uses play to bring its urban visitors together, weaving new social bonds as they explore, meet, and share with each other.

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Large-scale physical installation

Status
Proposal

Competition
Sukkah City: NYC 2010

Venue
Union Square NYC

Collaboration with
Designer Clara Klein
Game designer Eric Zimmerman

Year
2010

Suggested play

Two or more visitors stand far apart.
Each player begins by touching a blue oasis object. Your goal is to encounter another player at an oasis.

Drift by traveling along the grid in a continuous line, tracing a path with your finger. When you reach an oasis or an edge, stop moving, change direction and begin traveling again.

When you and another player arrive at the same oasis, you win. Remove the oasis from the wall and share something with each other: some food, a secret, or perhaps just a laugh.

When you are finished, place the oasis in a new location.

MM STUDIO · NYC

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MM Studio is a workspace, office, archive, exhibition space, artist studio, and production management headquarter for an international artist.

The interior renovation accommodate the complex multifunction needs of the organization with pristine aesthetics. The final result is a calm but highly contemporary design that glows with tranquility and light.

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Interior design and project management  for the renovation of an artist studio and management office

Location
New York City

Year
2010

Furniture design
Table · Takeshi Miyakawa Design

SIXTEEN TONS

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In Sixteen Tons, four players bribe each other with real money in order to win. Heavy sections of steel pipe are the game pieces - but you can’t move your own pieces. Instead, when the game starts you take three dollars from your wallet and use that money to pay others to move your pieces for you.

This intense social and strategic play is enclosed in a surrounding wall with narrow openings, giving Sixteen Tons the feeling of a clandestine betting pit. The intentionally ambiguous rules don’t tell players what to do with each others’ dollars - and by the end of the game the winner usually has no money left .

You load sixteen tons, and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt.
-Tennessee Ernie Ford

Thanks to Stephen Bodnar at SCAD for fabricating the game pieces and to curator John Sharp for his support.

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Large-scale physical game

Collaboration with
Game designer Eric Zimmerman

Commissioned by
Art History of Games, a conference and exhibition organized by Savannah College of Art & Design and Georgia Tech

Location
Atlanta

Year
2010

Sponsors
Walls by Molo Design

SHEDS · WATERMILL NY

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The Watermill Center is a laboratory for the arts and humanities providing a global community the time, space and freedom to create and inspire.
[...]
The Watermill Center was founded in 1992 by theater and visual artist Robert Wilson on the site of a former Western Union communication research facility near Southampton, Long Island, about two hours from New York City.  Watermill fosters research in the arts of the stage, providing young and emerging artists with a unique environment for creation and exploration in theater and all its related art forms, and developing a strong global network.

The Watermill Center

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Concept development for the use of three existing sheds on the grounds of the The Watermill Center

Status
proposal

Collaboration with
architect Rebecca Jones Sterlings

Location
Watermill · New York City

Year
2008

SONVEULLA HOUSE · ALPS

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Sonveulla House is a well-preserved traditional Alpine dwelling with mixed living and farming functions.

In winter, the hay was stored above the living areas and thus served as insulation. Traditionally, animals provided additional warmth to the home. The main living room was divided from the cows’ stable by pivoting walls only, and the sleeping area was shared with sheep.

The project combines the renovation of the original wood and stone structure and the rehabilitation of the existing living areas with the construction of a new volume within the hayloft. In contrast with the highly defined functions of the existing rooms, the new volume in the hayloft is a neutral space – adjustable to the evolving working and living requirements of its current inhabitants.

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Preliminary concept development for the restoration of an eighteenth century rural house

Status
Proposal

Collaboration between
Koji Hashimoto · Aya Nakamura · Nathalie Pozzi

Drawings by
Aya Nakamura

Location
Italian Alps

Status
in progress

LASTU SUMMER SAUNA · FINLAND

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As part of the Wood Program at Helsinki University of Technology, the Lastu Sauna concept originated with architect Peter Westerlund and was developed by a team from the Wood Program.

In addition to general creative contributions and construction work, project responsibilities focused on the design of the outer skin of the building, which is designed to both screen and reflect light.

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Design development and construction of a modular summer sauna.

A project part of the Wood Program · Helsinki University of Technology

Author
Peter Westerlund (Finland) with Adam Guernier (Australia), Nathalie Pozzi (Italy), Isshin Sasaki and Koji Hashimoto  (Japan), Max Lönnqvist (Sweden), Sevra Davis and Nathaniel Moore (Usa).

Location
Fiskars · Finland

Year:
2003

Lastu Sauna is built along the Fiskars River. The entire structure is a single wall, curled like a wood shaving.

The flow of the wall leads bathers through the sauna, taking them from the bright light of an open terrace to the dim illumination of an enclosed sauna built out of solid wood.

As it transforms from open to being enclosed, its grid-like wood wall divides the building into functional areas: a terrace, a changing room and a sauna.

The sauna is built of 1”x4” spruce boards. The planks have been fastened at their joints by four hot-dipped galvanized machine nails. The high number of joints ensures the structural integrity of this small building.

The inner surfaces of the wall structure are planed boards and the outer layers are fine-sawn. The building has been finished with a white, oil-based wood preservative.

The open wall of the terrace is built from three layers of wood, and the solid-wood walls of the sauna are constructed out of seven distinct layers of wood.

SAVU SAUNA · FINLAND

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Savusauna (Smoke Sauna) is a dark and massive wooden hut. The project focuses on the synthesis of smoke, water and sunlight.

The fulcrum of the sauna is a covered terrace that separates the pristine dressing room from the charcoal of the sauna room. A gable roof, covered by dark, oil-treated metal panels, encloses and shades the terrace. Bench-beds on either side of the terrace allow bathers to view framed panoramas of the lake beyond.

The interior lighting of the sauna, regulated by a sliding louver, is low and concentrated. In contrast, the light in the dressing room is bright and diffuse. The exterior cladding is made from tar treated horizontal timber boards.

As the sauna ages, the natural decay of the exterior wood surface will give it a rich tactile and visual texture.

Savu Sauna was exhibited in Fiskar · Finland

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Sauna Concept

Academic Institution
Wood Program · Helsinki University of Technology

Location
Helsinki · Finland

Year
2003