Three glowing, house-shaped winter shelters with translucent walls made of stacked circular patterns sit in a snow-covered landscape at dusk. A woman bundled in a winter coat sits inside the central hut, which emanates a warm light. Evergreen trees flank the left, while bare trees and distant buildings are visible on the right under a blue-grey sky.

FaceTime

Teton Village, Wyoming

Service

Public Art

Type

Public + Cultural

Location

Teton Village, Wyoming

Photography

Tuck Fauntleroy

Park(ing) Day occurs the third Friday of every September. Started in 2005 in San Francisco, the worldwide event calls for creative people to transform parking spots into temporary public parks. The Jackson Hole Park(ing) Day event was the first display for The Facetime structures.

A dark winter night landscape features two glowing, house-shaped architectural structures made of translucent panels. They stand in rippling, snow-covered ground, casting a warm, golden light. A dark evergreen tree partially obscures the structure on the left, and bare deciduous trees are visible behind them against a deep blue-black sky.

Facetime is a phone-free space that plays upon Apple’s video messaging app Facetime. The firm wanted to create a space that would force people to engage with someone else instead of a screen.

The idea evolved out of the firm’s biweekly studio sessions, reserved for discussions, lectures or collective brainstorming. Staff members worked weekends and after hours to build the installation. The firm used found and recycled objects to create the huts. Leftover scraps from job sites and plotter paper cardboard tubes were cut into 3” rings and glued together to serve as the end walls. The tube walls add texture, transparency, while still providing privacy for a conversation.

Urban night scene featuring vibrant red and orange long-exposure light trails above a dark street. Two house-shaped art installations with honeycomb-patterned fronts flank a central FACETIME sign, positioned in front of a building with brightly lit windows.

The conversation huts were again installed in Teton Village during the annual GLOW Nights Festival, and event that employs light as a medium to attract people out into public spaces at night. The structures were re-clad recycled HDPE panels to withstand the winter conditions and simple pendant lights were added to illuminate the spaces at night.

Glowing translucent hut in a snowy winter landscape at night, surrounded by bare trees, with warmly lit buildings visible in the background.

Project Leads

Eric Logan FAIA

Partner

Jeffrey Johnston

Associate