From the Series
The Basurama artist collective was established in 2001 to create awareness around throwaway consumer culture by demonstrating socially beneficial ways to reuse waste. In a joint venture with the City Yeast cooperative from the Taiwan-based company AGUA Design, Basurama has launched Re-create – an initiative that has created play areas in Taipei using trash as its primary building block.
The design studios worked together to create two temporary playgrounds, which they built from waste items including discarded water tanks and old street lamps found in nearby landfills. The team at Basurama is committed to using locally sourced building materials in all their projects, which allows them to develop their skills in experimenting with an assortment of trash items. Basurama design member, Mónica Gutiérrez Herrero says the Re-create project was the first time her team has worked with water tanks, which is ubiquitous in that part of the world.
The playgrounds were constructed in central Taipei over a period of ten days, and preceded by a nine-month long design process, which involved working with community members, gathering trash and choosing suitable sites in the city.
The one installation features different play areas, such as a ball pit, a tunnel, a maze and a slide, that are built with water tank frameworks and completed with other waste materials. The other playground comes with swings made from street lamps.
Re-create is a project commissioned as a feature of the World Design Capital 2016, which means that the playgrounds will be removed later on in the year.
