Architects of Air

As part of Ann Arbor's Summer Festival, a traveling art exhibit from the UK came and parked itself on Palmer Field. From the outside, it looked like a weird bouncy castle--gray plastic appendages with colored hats perched upon the turrets. No one quite knew what to expect.

But word of mouth was that it was pretty awesome, and so on the last of the four days it was here, I wandered over with two friends to see what it was all about. Little did we know (nor did anyone else know!) that it was so popular that for a twenty-minute experience of light and color, you had to wait at least two hours. And no, the nice staff member told us, the wait was not expected to ever get any shorter.

You can't read the sign, but it says "Wait is approx. 3 hours."

Because we had nothing else to be doing, we decided to stick it out. The wait wasn't so bad (despite sunburns for my two fair-skinned friends) because 1) the staff handed out a ton of free water bottles, 2) a Michigan drumline came to play for the weary audience, and 3) there was excellent people-watching.

Eventually we made it to the door of the giant bouncy castle (real name: Amococo, by the Architects of Air) and were instructed to take off our shoes and be mindful of any sharp objects in our pockets. (How embarrassing would it be to accidentally deflate the exhibit with your house key...) The whole "building," we were told was entirely supported by air and the colors seen inside were the result of sunlight shining through pure colored plastic pieced together by hand--no electric lights whatsoever. The building had four domes: one red, one blue, one green, and one multicolored. The design was said to be inspired primarily by nature and also by Islamic architecture. Once inside, you could take about twenty minutes to walk where you pleased, to sit down or lay down, to meditate or take pictures.

I did all of the above, and I have to say, it was worth the wait. This was one of the coolest things I ever saw, and it made me want one in my own backyard.

Take a look:

 

Totally worth the 2.5 hour wait! It's like a huge silvery space station.

Colin is mesmerized. I feel like I'm a bug on a leaf.

This striped column had lily petals (not pictured) at the top.

The whole thing feels very surreal.