A Giant Inflatable Is Bringing Communities Together in London

With clear parts that let you see inside, a bright yellow bubble structure houses chairs, plants, tables—everything you would imagine in a space that would be somewhere non-inflatable. When inflated at London Fields park,  Spanish architectural practice DOSIS' Second Dome, looks like something from another time, like an object from the future.The inflatable structure created by allows people to gather in public spaces. Commissioned for Founders Forum, the dome was part of a free activities organized by not-for-profit organization Shuffle that included piñata-designing, film screenings, and more.

As described by its creators, Second Dome is a “reconfigurable space that can transform within minutes from a single bubble to a multi-room structure.”

 “It was a fantastic experience to see people discover the object, touch it, understand it and experiment with it… see how they went from surprise to exploration,” writes DOSIS' Ignacio Peydro and Isabel Collado in an email to The Creators Project. “We really enjoyed seeing the reaction of kids, how they interacted with Second Dome. They seemed free to discover all the hidden possibilities. Their parents then followed, they learnt from them.”

That playfulness also extends to the way that people interpret urban space. The sudden appearance of an inflatable structure within the city space changes the way people view their environment. It offers a new way to think about architecture.

DOSIS created the structure to not only encourage play but to also be easy to build and take down. The structure can work for virtually any purpose, giving limitless possibilities to any city that uses it. That feels particularly valuable to DOSIS. “Nothing is comparable to see that you have been able to provide a different way to live the city, to experience urban life,” Peydro and Collado write. “This might be the most important reason to do what we do.”

DOSIS hopes to inflate the structure again soon in various spaces around London. To find out more about Second Dome, click here.

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