Project Description
Huellas Artes
A splash of colour for Santiago centre
Painted Scape in Santiago, it is a sign or trace that recognizes spontaneous functions performed there daily and expressed it graphically, complementing them with new social dynamics.
Huellas Artes interprets the human footprint as an artistic trail in Santiago city.
It is a cultural engine fueled by the passing flow of citizens and visitors from around the Bellas Artes metro station, a highly cultural area of downtown Santiago.
The Urban Footprint is a non-built configuration that creates and defines an environment without restrain or enclosing it. It is an architectural intervention that proposes a new use scene in a fully unclosed outdoor space.
It is a sign or trace that recognizes spontaneous functions performed there daily and expressed it graphically, complementing them with new social dynamics absolutely intended to public interaction.
The project is developed over the underground metro station, using its ground area, which currently operates as a non-functional plaza. The main idea is to revitalize the site as a catalyst of activities related to the constant flow of people that the station attracts. Thus, the project uses the entire land surface, highlighting the main circulations occurring.
It establishes a series of functions encouraging social relationships among those who circulate through the place, evidencing the possibilities of spatial transformation by colors, words, selfie photoghaphs and lines.
The main material used is cloth tape coated with polyethylene in various colors and sizes. Further, the design has no additional volumes to the existing on site. In this sense, the project acts as a costume, a dress for the plaza placing itself on top of the existing and awakening new spatial possibilities on a given structure.
The uses and activities proposed are a selfie Wall, where passersby have a playful approach to a large wall, an artist spot, where diverse Street artists and musicians express themselves freely, and a meeting point, which allows the recognition from the people that come out of the metro station. Other informal spontaneous functions where demarcated, such as “street vendor spot”, “directional arrows”, “seating benches” and more. These uses naturally complement the dynamics that arise spontaneously on the site.
On another hand, this uses acts as bridges to the virtual world, since they were conceived to generate valuable digital information that is traduced on a wide range of virtual dynamics. The project provided opportunities of constant transition between the virtual and the material space.
The selfies wall it is a revealing example from where more than 1000 photos in less than 2 days where uploaded in the social networks for virtual interaction. It became a shortly yet significant landmark of the virtual.
The project had an ephemeral spirit, as it lasted 3 days, starting with the overnight transformation of the plaza. In the first morning the impact was absolutely striking when the users noticed that something had drastically transformed the everyday and everybody’s space.
A colorful playful and renewed image invited to experience this new space from an unexplored perspective, without altering its structure but with multiple new social possibilities. The ephemeral nature of the work enhances the excitement of having lived that particular experience and encourages greater attention to circulation spaces that we use daily and on which we rarely stop to appreciate its qualities and generate a civic sense. It is an invitation to discover these places where we usually believe there is nothing more.
This project is part of a series of Urban Footprints happening in emerging cities. Stay tuned to the next works of this series.
http://100architects.com/project/huellas-artes/