Bamboulette
Let's face it, some EPFL squares look more like Walmart car parks on a Sunday morning than places to meet and relax to enjoy a sandwich at lunchtime or a discussion on subatomic particles in the afternoon. Thus, it seemed necessary to invent the Bamboulette. Future indispensable object of the public squares, it will have the ambition to be a chair, a bench, an umbrella, a trolley and a green space at the same time!
Project description
When the lunch break starts, EPFL students are usually all in search of the same Holy Grail: finding a nice place to enjoy their lunch. The North Square, in front of the SG building, is one of those popular places.
However, many people will have to squint throughout their sandwich, due to the lack of sun protection on the square. Others will have pain in their buttocks, sitting as best they can on the concrete floor because of the lack of furniture. Finally, who among them won’t move several times to follow the curve of the shade during the hot days?
These disturbances linked to the luminosity, the lack of benches, chairs or places in the shade are usual and recurrent in public squares. It is for all these reasons that the Bamboulette project was born. Our goal is to imagine an object capable of meeting all the requirements mentioned above. The Bamboulette will have the ambition to be a chair, a bench, an umbrella, a trolley and a green space at the same time!
A wagon will carry a large amount of soil filled with bamboo. Made of wooden planks, the structure will be modular and its sides can be folded out to form a kind of bench. So people will be able to sit down and protect themselves from the sun thanks to the protection of the bamboo branches. Finally, the trolley will be made of wheels, allowing it to be moved by its users according to the wind, sun and shade.
For more information, here is the final poster of the project:
