The London Design Festival launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise money for one of the craziest mini-golf courses ever made.
The plan is to turn London’s Trafalgar Square into a colorful course this September. Notable designers, including Tom Dixon, Mark Wallinger, and the late Zaha Hadid, each get to create a hole of their own.
Eight holes have been designed for the mini-golf (known in the UK as "crazy golf") course, and they all feature much more than a windmill and a turf incline. Dixon’s hole integrates pneumatic tubes; players must navigate Wallinger’s circular maze; and Hadid designed a curvy, dual-level hole that traces the shadow of the square’s Nelson’s Column. The entries are bright, creative, and, to many putt-putt golfers across the universe, at least a quadruple bogey.
Paul Smith is the project’s visionary. The architect has held other events at Trafalgar Square over the years, including life-size chess and a robot show. Smith’s hole calls for a set of 10 multicolored stairways. The other designers who took part in the project are Camille Walala, Atelier Bow-Wow, HAT Projects, NEON, and Ordinary Architecture, the latter of which envisioned a hole where a player hits their ball into a large pigeon and watches it roll through its digestive tracks.
The project’s goal is to amuse both adults and children, and teach the public about the future of design.
The course “will attract a wide, public audience, and inspire the next generation of creatives,” as its Kickstarter puts it. “Thousands will be able to play the course, and millions more will watch and enjoy this experience, both in the square and through media.”
A little more than $5,000 has been raised thus far. There are still 42 days left to reach the $172,862 goal.
Related Stories
| Dec 18, 2014
Frank Lloyd Wright's Taliesin West to be recreated—with LEGO
Containing more than 180,000 LEGO bricks in 11 colors and 120 different shapes, the model measures eight by four feet and is made entirely of standard LEGO parts.
| Dec 18, 2014
11 new highs for tall buildings: CTBUH recaps the year's top moments in skyscraper construction
The Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat cherrypicked the top moments from 2014, including a record concrete pour, a cautionary note about high-rise development, and two men's daring feat.
| Dec 18, 2014
International Parking Institute and Green Parking Council collaborate with GBCI
The new collaboration recognizes importance of sustainable parking facility design and management to the built environment.
| Dec 18, 2014
Top 10 sports facilities of 2014: Designboom ranks the year's best projects
The list includes some of the year's epic stadiums, such as World Cup Stadium Arena de Amazonia in Manaus, Brazil, and smaller projects, like the Spordtgebouw Sports Centerin the Netherlands.
| Dec 18, 2014
In response to ultra-open and uber-collaborative office environments
Susan Cain’s bestselling 2012 book, "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking" has made an impact on how we understand our current workforce, recognizing that at least one-third of the people we work with are introverts, writes SRG Partnership's Susan Gust.
| Dec 17, 2014
USGBC announces 2014 Best of Green Schools honorees
Houston's Monarch School was named the K-12 school of the year, and Western Michigan University was honored as the top higher-ed institution, based on environmental programs and education efforts.
| Dec 17, 2014
ULI report looks at growing appeal of micro unit apartments
New research from the Urban Land Institute suggests that micro units have staying power as a housing type that appeals to urban dwellers in high-cost markets who are willing to trade space for improved affordability and proximity to downtown neighborhoods.
| Dec 17, 2014
11 predictions for high-rise construction in 2015
In its annual forecast, the Council on Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat predicts that 2015 will be the "Year of the Woodscraper," and that New York’s troubled B2 modular high-rise project will get back on track.
| Dec 17, 2014
Demand softens, but outlook for Architecture Billings Index remains positive
The AIA's Architecture Billings Index for November was 50.9, down from a mark of 53.7 in October. Despite the drop, the ABI continued its seven-month run of positive scores (above 50).
Sponsored | | Dec 16, 2014
Quadcopters save project team $15K in warranty work
On a recent trip to see what technology Todd Wynne and the rest of the team at Rogers-O’Brien Construction have been tinkering with, I had a chance to experience firsthand which new hardware innovations will one day be applied in the AEC space.