We built this for our own fun last year during a global pandemic. We wanted to know what it would be like if Lockdown never ended… let the plants and nature take over. So welcome to our little piece of calm. Please explore all!
So reads the introduction to * nourish *, a parcel Shawn Shakespeare recently pointed me towards. Located on a Full private region, this is small parcel – just over 2,300 square metres in size – that packs a lot into it.
Designed by Molly (MollyWolliDoodle) with the assistance of Matt (MatthSuogan), the parcel is focused on a street scene – but not your typical street. As per the description, this is a place where a pandemic lockdown has meant that nature has moved in, leaving the local businesses overgrown with the road and footpaths becoming cracked as grass makes its presence felt.
The businesses lining either side of the road look as if they haven’t opened in a long time – and not even social distancing has allowed their proprietors to maintain their frontages, although their neon signs continue to shine as if to enticing possible customers.
Conversely, the local multi-storey – clearly no longer required for the purpose of parking cars – appears to have been taken over as a kind of club environment and social space. It stands a little at odds with the idea of a lockdown preventing people gathering together, so one can only assume that it has been taken over by those within the same social bubble.
The roof of the building has been converted into a place for games and partying – and quite imaginatively so; including the conversion of a locomotive caught on the elevated tracks that pass the structure.
This rooftop setting is actually the icing on what is a compact cake of rich detail. From the street slowly being reclaimed by nature through the multi-storey to the waterfront with its rough beach and broken house, there is plenty to catch the eye and the camera lens, and the apparent contradictions (subject to a never-ending lockdown and the construction of the place intended to bring people together) simply work. In fact, the contrast talks to the the realities seen within the current run of restrictions on public / social gathering.
There is a certain novelty to the setting that is engaging and which makes a visit more than just the opportunity to explore; it encourages visitors to spend time simply appreciating the design. And the novelty is more than skin deep, so to speak – should you drop in, be sure to walk down the steps to the subway; there is actually more there than might first meet the eye.
Compact, carefully thought-out and executed, * nourish * is visually engaging and fun.
SLurl Details
- * nourish * (Boschetto, rated Adult)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 