Gallery: Elastic Environments: Turning Parking Garages Into Yoga Studios and Back Again
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Architects are struggling to figure out how to maximize an urban space’s functionality, no matter its size. While the compact living trend continues to rise with minuscule apartments popping up in major cities, some architects aren’t thinking about making small spaces. Instead, they’re getting creative with how they envision a space’s purpose by making sure those can easily change and evolve to meet the users’ needs. These spaces are being called elastic environments, a term that seems to have been coined by the crowd-sourced project [My Ideal City](http://www.miciudadideal.com/en), which is working to re-imagine urban space in Bogota, Colombia. But now these malleable environments are popping up all over the world, transforming some of the most unlikely structures into areas with many uses. We've found a handful to show the various ways this approach is being rendered. __above__ 1111 Lincoln Road ----------------- One of the newest elastic environments is also one of the biggest: [1111 Lincoln Road](http://www.1111lincolnroad.com/) in Miami Beach looks like a gigantic parking garage, but it turns out that’s only one of its uses. Designed and developed by the architects at [Herzog & de Meuron](http://www.herzogdemeuron.com/index.html) and art collector Robert Wennett, the building has space for nearly 300 cars as well as restaurants, bars, department stores, and events like concerts and fashion shows. So far 1111 has transformed to hold weddings, wine tastings, and yoga classes, all while providing a gorgeous view of the city with its 34-foot-high ceilings and sparse exterior walls. Location is a key aspect to the potential success of this elastic environment, one that Herzog & de Meuron wanted to take full advantage of by placing 1111 in the middle of Miami’s cultural hotspots. [#iframe: http://player.vimeo.com/video/51889050?byline=0&portrait=0](660x371)|||||| *Photo: Courtesy Denise Grant Video: Courtesy Elizabeth Priore, [DigiVision Productions Inc.](http://www.dvisionpro.com/)*
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Waku Waku Station ----------------- The Waku Waku Station at Tokyo’s Urban Dock LaLaport Toyosu mall is part information center, part playpen, and part basecamp. Designed by [Torafu Architects](http://torafu.com/) and sponsored by Mitsui Real Estate Residential, the installation ran from October 2012 to March 2013 and was meant to encourage locals and visitors to rediscover the events and culture of Tokyo’s waterfront area. With its colorful, geometrically shaped containers, counters, and cabinets, the station held information about waterfront events while also being a distraction for restless kids who were dragged to the mall, and a starting point for a family-friendly harbor-front treasure hunt. All of the different colored pieces of the station could be moved and rearranged, much like a life-sized game of pegs. Torafu’s Minaho Sakane says they wanted to create a playful space that could both display information about the area, and become the information as well. "We proposed creating a booth from separate pieces by assembling giant building blocks into walls and a counter," Sakane says. "The design takes inspiration from the yachts, boats, houses and buildings found in the bay scenery. Some surfaces can be used as sign boards or come down easily to become a table or a bench, and like building blocks, they can support themselves by lying on one another. By resizing building blocks, the booth itself becomes a poster for events." \[caption id="attachment\_148571" align="alignnone" width="660"\][](http://stag-komodo.wired.com/design/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/hi_wak_06_photo_daici_ano.jpg) Hidden cabinets and stowaway benches offer a range of flexibility.\[/caption\] *Photos: Courtesy Minaho Sakane*
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Story ----- Cube Venture’s Rachel Shechtman has been experimenting with elastic retail environments in New York City with her shop [Story](http://thisisstory.com/). Sitting on the corner of 10th Avenue and 19th Street, Story is a 2000-square foot store that turns itself inside-out every 4 to 8 weeks to host different events and sell a variety of products. Shechtman worked with architects from [HWKN](http://www.hwkn.com/) to create a layout that could easily be changed every time a new theme begins. The shop closes down for 4 to 10 days with each transformation, but she expects the changing process to become swifter and easier with time. Shechtman says designing Story as a constantly morphing environment was a collaborative effort, just as the shop provides a collaborative experience for retailers and shoppers. "Each Story is designed by a creative contributor—interior designers, Pratt students, architects, and others," Shechtman says. "We created a core space, our canvas, that is very flexible. We approached the design of the space in the same way we work and breath as a company—through partnership." http://www.youtube.com/embed/PUATqqLAGEE *Photo and Video: Courtesy Rachel Shechtman*
A frame from a Leviathans session report. Image: Cedric Chong04gt-cj-05
The Gourmet Tea --------------- Designed by Brazilian designer [Alan Chu](http://www.escritorio.arq.br/), The Gourmet Tea shop could be either eye-catching or easy to miss, depending on which form it’s in. The shop sits inside a wall, only delineated by colorful panels on the outside. Closed up, the colored panels act almost as a mural, but slide and swing them open and you have a small teashop bursting with color and spaces that were invisible before. The counter pulls out from the center, shelves wheel out from the sides, and cupboards come out of the door in the back of the shop. Even the sign for the shop is concealed behind a hinged panel. Not just clever branding, as the colors of the walls are also the colors of the blends of tea the store sells, it’s also an optical illusion that dilutes the boundary between indoors and outdoors. Customers get the feeling of being in an intimate environment, while still enjoying being outside. Its malleability is embedded in surprise — at a glance, it looks like an artistic wall, but when it opens up you’re invited into a world of possibilities in space functionality. *Photo: Courtesy Alan Chu*
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ICRAVE Studio ------------- The designers at the [ICRAVE studio](http://www.icrave.com/) would not settle for just any office. When founder Lionel Ohayon began the studio, he had his team brainstorm ideas, pin them up for everyone to see, and then they picked the best ideas from those to create a crowd-sourced, micro-environment everyone could not only work in, but thrive in. In the front of the studio there’s a large meeting table that doubles as an archery target set-up, and there are conference rooms that can be completely broken down wall by wall to open up the entire office for events. There’s a large chalkboard wall that lifts up for another entryway into the kitchen, and the area affectionately known as the Pit that’s a free space with beanbags for casual working and meetings. Ohayon took into account the interactions employees would be having with each other and clients, rather than just focusing on the static bits and pieces that traditionally make up an office. "People spend a lot of time here, so we want them to want to be here," Ohayon says. "It’s also a creative space, and creative spaces have to open your mind and be inspirational in themselves. You don’t have to be confined to one area to come up with ideas — ideas don’t come that way, so we think that allowing people to use different areas to gather, get active, and have fun is really important. The office feels like it’s alive. People bring their interests with them. When people come here and work here, they feel like they are part of the action." *Photo: Courtesy ICRAVE*
