URBAN beard
The proposal is not about bikes • Rather, the project seeks to establish a recognizable yet ephemeral and temporal urban landmark in Downtown Cleveland for the Bike Station without the use of traditional building materials, elemental proportions and compositions, empty formalism, or signage • The proposal suggests “growing” an URBAN BEARD on the parking garage • The BEARD is a soft, adaptable, and reactive field • The whiskers can blow in the wind, shed rain drop-by-drop, and gather snow picturesquely • The BEARD can glow at night in uniform color or a myriad of colors, changing second-by-second, reflecting the zeitgeist of the city • The URBAN BEARD can possess integral color in the daylight • Moreover, through the BEARD’s urban shagginess, the Bike Station will be easily located • The URBAN BEARD will be composed of a sculpted field of fiber optic strands of varying lengths, tints, and luminous capacity • The fibers will be planted in mat-like aluminum frames that can clad the existing concrete panels • The aluminum frames can be anchored directly into the concrete or strapped and affixed to the concrete panels at the interior faces • Power for the URBAN BEARD can be supplied with cost effective solar harvesting devices located within the field, on the eastern façade of the garage, or existing power sources • Color alteration can be accomplished through the color of the fibers or the illumination source device
