Art installations

What is it? 

Art installations temporarily transform public spaces using interactive and visual elements like ‘Umbrella.blossoms’ and ‘Cariage’, fostering engagement, creativity, and alternative uses of urban streets. 

Why is it useful? 

Art installations invite people to rethink and interact with public spaces, fostering social engagement and placemaking. They create temporary interventions that can raise awareness and encourage participation in street transformation. 

Who should use it? 

Residents, artists, urban planners, community groups, and cultural organisations can implement these installations. Residents, passers-by, and local businesses interact with them, experiencing new ways of using public space and engaging in discussions about it. 

How to use it? 

Art Installations are temporary, interactive, and adaptable, designed to transform public spaces and engage communities. 

‘Umbrella.blossoms’ uses colourful umbrellas mounted on extended poles to create visual landmarks that spark curiosity and dialogue. They are installed in clusters, either secured to urban structures like fences and benches or inserted into soft ground. 

‘Cariage’ is a mobile parklet: a wooden platform on wheels that serves as a flexible social space for sitting, playing, or performing. Easily assembled and transported, it reclaims space traditionally used for parking and demonstrates new possibilities for public areas. 

Both installations encourage community participation when built and implemented collectively. They are affordable, scalable, and reusable, allowing different neighbourhoods to explore urban transformations. By activating streets and inviting interaction, they support more inclusive and vibrant urban environments.   

Example of good practices

Both tools have been used on countless occasions in Vienna since 2023, as well as once in Istanbul in June 2024. In the latter, they were used during a street closing day, in which invited stakeholders and passers-by were involved in different activities. These tools not only effectively increased the visibility of the event, but also created a pleasant and joyful open space for exchange through the ‘Umbrella.blossoms’, and a stage for interventions and support for hanging information relevant to participants (Cariage).

This tool was developed by Alain Tisserand / Tisserand Schaller Architekten

Resources: Manual and building specification