TYPE Material Research & Public Installation
DATE 2018
LOCATION Houston, TX
DESIGN LEAD
David Costanza
DESIGN TEAM
Philip Niekamp
Ekin Erar
Samantha Schuermann
Clarie Wagner
Yumeng An
Qi Luo
Michael Hernandez
TipTap is an interactive urban object that seeks to bring together the diverse social and cultural bodies present at a site in Houston through coordinated play. TipTap builds on the research developed for the Rocker installation. The design of the object is conceived of as two offset circles. The outer circle is 15’ in diameter, and the inner circle is 5’ in diameter. Each circle is segmented into seven equal parts to allow construction using linear structural members. The resultant heptagons are strategically shifted from the initial center points producing varied forms of inhabitation and interactions.
The spacing on one side of the object allows for people to lay horizontally in a hammock-like condition, developed in the half-scale yellow prototype. On the opposite side, the distance is reduced, directing the user upright into a seated position. Two vertices from the larger heptagon are strategically aligned with two vertices from the smaller, shifted heptagon producing a tipping axis. On the narrow ‘upright’ portion of the object, the geometry is slightly lifted from the ground plane allowing the entire object to teeter back and forth depending on the occupation.