SITE:
A plaza in front of the English Department building. On either side of the stairway up to the building, a pedestal holds a concrete sphere, three feet nine inches in diameter. Until now, the plaza has been used only as a pass-through place, a circulation route through the campus, with a stop-off at the building; the spheres make a grand entrance to what is, in fact, just the entrance to an English-Department building – the spheres are isolated, and lonely in the plaza.

PROJECT:
The existent spheres are subsumed into a field of spheres. Additional spheres, the same material as the existent spheres and ranging from one foot two inches to ten feet six inches, are dropped into the plaza; the existent spheres fit into the range of sizes.

The new spheres are cut into, so that they’re usable as furniture; the cuts are sheeted with frosted acrylic panels – light shines from within the spheres, providing illumination for the furniture and additional light for the plaza at night.

On the ramp up to the plaza, each half of a seven-foot sphere borders the pathway; you enter the plaza by crossing through a sphere – you can sit on either side, in a niche inside the cut. Within the plaza, a niche is cut half-way around an eight-foot two-inch sphere, where you can sit together with a group of people, side-by-side. Near the building across from the English department, a cut is made into either side of a four-foot eight-inch sphere, where you can sit behind another person, back-to-back. In the middle of the plaza, a niche is cut through the largest sphere, ten feet six inches, making an L-shaped seat around a table. Near the stairs, a cut is made in a two-foot four-inch sphere, forming a small back for a single seat. On the stairs, a five-foot ten-inch sphere is cut in half; you can walk through a three-foot space in the middle. On the landing at the top of the stairs, a cross-shaped niche is cut into a nine-foot four-inch sphere, through which you can walk between two rows of seated people. Against the building, next to the door, the top is cut off the smallest sphere, one foot two inches, so that you can sit on it.

The plaza is filled with itself, filled with the elements that were there all the time, the spheres on either side of the stairs. The spheres have replicated; the plaza turns on itself, like the attack of the killer tomatoes. Now that the plaza is occupied by things and places, it can be occupied in turn by people. You sit within the glow of the spheres.