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Cloud-inspired playscape opens at Fort Lauderdale airport

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Cloud-inspired playscape opens at Fort Lauderdale airport

 

Harvard Graduate School of Design–based architect Volkan Alkanoglu recently completed work on a new 2,000-square-foot cloud-inspired playscape installation at the Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport (FLL) in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The playscape takes after Verner Panton’s Visiona 2 installation from 1970, also postulating an ethereal multi-sensory fantasy landscape, this one filled with pint-sized bubbly geometries and rounded nooks and crannies that can be occupied, climbed over, and enjoyed by traveling children of all ages.

For the airport installation, Alkanoglu and his team naturally drew inspiration from the clouds—“fluffy, airy, white cushions [that] simply resemble a picturesque landscape,” according to a press release—that kids can see from the airplane cabin. Ultimately, Alkanoglu has designed an obstacle course from these “sublime formations,” a playscape that can be experienced safely on the ground while waiting to board a flight. The installation is made up of four cloud pods that contain integrated benches, a slide, and climbable stepped elements, among other features.

The pods are constructed from ¾”-thick, Fire 1–rated Medite, a type of medium-density fiberboard, colored in white automotive paint and finished in clear polyurethane. The play areas sit atop a two-inch poured-in-place slab made of rubberized flooring material and are lit from above using recessed lighting from Louis Poulsen.

The project was commissioned by the Broward County Board of County Commissioners’ Cultural Division and is located along a mezzanine level in Terminal 1 at FLL.

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