Crowd pleaser: LOT’s Flatiron Plaza installation opens to the public

Flatiron Plaza
LOT’s installation ‘Flatiron Sky-Line’ (left), which won the annual Flatiron Public Plaza Holiday Design Competition, is located in eyesight of some of New York's oldest skyscrapers including the Flatiron building (right).
(Image credit: Brian W Ferry)

‘Flatiron Sky-Line’, the first large public installation from New York-based architects studio LOT, has opened in Flatiron Plaza. The structure is made of colliding arches, which are studded with LED lights and hung with hammocks. Now opened, the installation has been finished off with the final addition to complete its structure – people.

Built specifically for the area, a busy thoroughfare surrounded by landmark buildings, the architects wanted an installation that would be visually impactful from all angles, rooftop to eye level.

With the location in mind, LOT directors Leonidas Trampoukis and Eleni Petaloti were keen to create a place that people would interact with. ‘People use this particular plaza as a resting spot during the day, as a meeting point and a site for contemplation within the busy intersection,’ says Trampoukis. ‘We wanted to embrace this intense atmosphere with an installation that is conceptually linked with all these practical and emotional states.’

Lot Intext

The lighting was designed by New York studio MAP

(Image credit: designed by New York studio MAP)

The installation garnered a lot of attention during the installation: ‘There were hundreds of people gathering around during the three days of installation while the area was still blocked off wanting to jump on the hammocks, photographing the surrounding landmarks through the white structure,’ says Trampoukis, who sees the crowd as a compliment to the simplicity of the structure.

While the structure has been designed site specifically, the architects also wanted it to be an ‘abstract universal installation that celebrates interaction between the public and the surrounding context by experiencing the surroundings through a different lens’. They explain: ‘Although the structure draws its geometry from the New York site, it is a free-standing interactive art installation that will activate and light up other public spaces where it can be installed and engage in "conversation" with the new context and people.’

Crowd pleaser: LOT’s Flat Iron installation opens to the public

The project is LOT’s first large-scale public installation. The arches are made of white powder-coated steel tubes illuminated with LED lights

(Image credit: Photography Brian W Ferry)

INFORMATION

’Flatiron Sky-Line’ will be on view until 2 January 2017. For more information, visit the LOT website

ADDRESS

Flatiron Plaza
E 23rd St
New York, NY 10010

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Harriet Thorpe is a writer, journalist and editor covering architecture, design and culture, with particular interest in sustainability, 20th-century architecture and community. After studying History of Art at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) and Journalism at City University in London, she developed her interest in architecture working at Wallpaper* magazine and today contributes to Wallpaper*, The World of Interiors and Icon magazine, amongst other titles. She is author of The Sustainable City (2022, Hoxton Mini Press), a book about sustainable architecture in London, and the Modern Cambridge Map (2023, Blue Crow Media), a map of 20th-century architecture in Cambridge, the city where she grew up.