Levita (modular surface)
Design for the Battery Park Conservancy design competition (selected TOP 50 designs)
Levita Is a 4 module system that works individualy or in groups. It’s basically concept is the connection between the user and the ground which in this case is the grass, the target of Levita is to offer a multi proposal surface for the park's visitors and avoid to disconnect the people with the ground. Levita is a seating proposal that is the result of the observation of the people's activities, needs and natural behavior in a specific zone in the park, the green. Its wavy forms comes from the mist concept, it is a phenomenon like a levitating fog or cloud above the grassy fields. Levita can be set and be used as a seat, easy chair, back supporting, a picnic table, laptop table, and so on. The controlled group of Levita modules generates an attractive visual texture of wavy forms.
The Levita system has wide possibilities of manufacturing processes such as: Blocks of wood, bamboo or different types of boards molded by CNC milling machine. With this manufacturing method it is possible to play with the textures and colors and obtain jazzy finishes, it could be fabricated with Corian thru thermoforming; it could be made of plastic thru injection process, could be molded in wood by compressing matrices and routed to fillet the edges or coated with fibers and so on. This design allows choosing a wide range of manufacturing methods and materials depending on the needs or the budget.
Levita is composed by 4 modules but just 2 basic forms that also are stackable, the forms are inverted or rotated this is an important issue for the manufacturing industry. The general measures of Levita modules are 39" width by 39" length, the thickness of the shells are 2" in order to fillet the edges. The taller module is 13.5" tall, the lower module is 1.2" separated from the ground. The systems legs are made with Stainless Steel and are subjected to the shells with screwed plates; this grants strength, durability and firmness to the modules and also helps to keep the grass with no harm.
