ShowCase: The Waiting Room

From Archinect:

ShowCase is an on-going feature series on Archinect, presenting exciting new work from designers representing all creative fields and all geographies. We are always accepting nominations for upcoming ShowCase features - if you would like to suggest a project, please send us a message. Enel Contemporanea, the art sponsorship program of Italian utility company Enel, recently opened its third installation created by the American artist Jeffrey Inaba, in Collaboration with Luca Peralta Studio, Rome, Italy, at Rome's Policlinico Umberto I, the most important hospital in the Italian capital and one of the largest in Europe. A multi-functional medical structure which was at the cutting edge when founded at the end of the 19th century, today it is often the subject of debate and controversy. ↑ Click image to enlarge This is being countered by a gradual but significant process of renovation. The artistic project is focused particularly on the waiting and transit areas, used every day by large numbers of people. Within the delicate and complex social context that a hospital represents, the artist offers different kinds of space where patients, passers-by, visitors and doctors can enjoy moments of relaxation.  ↑ Click image to enlarge ↑ Click image to enlarge Colors, lights, geometric shapes and various environmentally friendly elements give the hospital a new, dynamic energy. Through art, waiting becomes potential energy, transmitting positivity and bringing an element of comfort to an architectural space normally seen as a temporary and highly emotional environment. ↑ Click image to enlarge The solar PV system generates more than the energy needed for the electricity to run the lights and the monitors and DVD player inside the sphere. The project uses a sustainable system but it is also intentionally accessible in form and image (Alice in Wonderland mushroom meets solar ray chomping PacMan). ↑ Click image to enlarge Jeffrey Inaba Jeffrey Inaba is founder of the architecture and cultural consulting studio INABA based in Los Angeles, which operates across architecture, art and urban design with a special focus on research and social issues. He is also Director of C-Lab, the architecture and communication research group of Columbia University and the Features Editor of Volume Magazine. From 1997 to 2003, together with Rem Koolhaas, he co-directed the Project on the City at Harvard University's Graduate School of Design. He recently exhibited work at the New Museum of Contemporary Art (New York), Walker Art Center (Minneapolis), the Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin) and will participate next month in the show, BIG, INABA, MAD, MASS: Four Urban Proposals for Ansan, at the Gyeonngido Museum of Modern Art in South Korea. He lives and works in Los Angeles.

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