I don’t have any specific concerns with the current street furniture at U of T, although I do have some utopian ideas on how street furniture can change the way people interact with the campus.
The first thing that interested me was open-ended use of street furniture. I personally find it less appealing to use designed space or furniture when there is instruction on how to properly use it. It’s always more fun to explore and find your own way. I think if street furniture on campus was more adaptable and flexible to students’ needs—for whatever the occasion—it could instigate more interaction with the campus space and with each other.
SPERAS was a concept developed by our group, combining “spectacle” with the term “rasa,” an emotion in an audience inspired by art.
My intent was to explore the role of street furniture as a form of stage prop that would encourage actors to expand the stage space. With SPERAS, street furniture becomes a socio-political stage that facilitates performances and dances as protest on campus.
The second thing I was interested in was everyday student needs. We students have a very peculiar way of going about our everyday—like how I huddle with my laptop by the electrical plugs in a cafe for hours, and then run around the campus like crazy trying to figure out the fastest way to my next class. Street furniture can use this “nature” of being a student; good design can fulfill these needs and promote interaction at the same time.
These were some of the thoughts that drove my studio project addressing King’s College Circle. Ultimately, I wanted to design street furniture so that when students used it, they would see the campus in a whole new way. I wanted it to be open-ended use (and the class project was to design for student activism) but I also wanted to create a pause in students’ daily pattern to create more interaction.
