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.
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.
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.