Developed by Alisa Andrasek and Jose Sanchez on the occasion of the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games in London, Bloom is as much a playground as an architectural construction that seeks to engage people. Designed for the public space, this “crowd sourced garden” materialises certain collective practices at work on the web (crowdsourcing). Assembling small units of entirely recyclable plastic together (each measuring 40 cm long and with three connections), the participants invent a number of combinations (circular, sinuous, spiralling, etc.) until they form a working structure with multiple branches. Infinitely extensible and reconfigurable (the series constructed in 2012 totalled 6,000 pieces), open to all appropriations, Bloom is as much a call to action as a hybrid object – both micro-architecture and urban sculpture. With its flaking structure and its bright pink reflections that make it look like a work of pop art, Bloom stands out in the landscape like a strange creature straight out of the abyss or perhaps from a distant future.
Aurélien Vernant
