Inflatables Project

As intense the work gets around here, I have to credit the GSD for knowing how to be intense about fun as well. You don't get the half-hearted free food events that run out and taste 'eh' for students to grab and just head right back to their desks that I'm used to from undergrad.

We recently finished off our materials and construction course with an inflatable project, probably the most fun I've ever had doing a group project, and I actually gained some knowledge in building techniques out of it.

Ours was huge. 8' x 8' x 32'.

It was a fun way to explore ideas of interior and exterior by actually inhabiting the air space and having the 'columns' and 'beams' create a new interior on the exterior surface of the inflatable. Also challenging the notion of column and beam as they both become tensile structures to hold the form together and prevent the hallway from becoming a sausage-blob.

The main idea that was really driving us from the beginning, however, was interactivity. See. Touch. Move.